


Pilot Light

by brynnmck



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Chefs, Brienne has never done anything wrong in her life, Comfort Food, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, I have watched a lot of Food Network, Reality Cooking Competition, but there is fake dating because I could not resist, fair warning this is not the most fake dating of fake dating fics, little spoon Jaime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:20:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 71,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21825040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynnmck/pseuds/brynnmck
Summary: COMPLETE - 1/23/20 (Deleted scene added 1/28/20)The food was good.Wondering if he'd slipped into an alternate universe or if this latest excruciating Lannister Corp gala was the straw that had finally driven the camel up the wall, Jaime tried another spoonful of the cioppino in front of him. And there it was again: the sweet-acid tang of tomato bolstered by the warmth of bay leaf, a tender clam bursting into salt on his tongue, and behind it all, a fearless flare of red pepper, just this side of too much, enough to bring the blood rushing and make him crave a cool drink and the next bite with equal fervor."Tyrion," he said, interrupting whatever his brother had been talking about, "this food is good."After stalking an exceptional cioppino, disgraced former chef Jaime Lannister meets non-disgraced current chef Brienne Tarth, who's angling for a spot on a reality cooking competition show that she hopes will change her life. Jaime's life could use a little changing too.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 589
Kudos: 545





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First fic in a new fandom, eeeeeeadljfasdj. 
> 
> The title for this story comes from a song by my one of my favorite bands, The Local Strangers, called [Pilot Light](https://thelocalstrangers.bandcamp.com/track/pilot-light). It is the world's most perfect love song and I HIGHLY recommend it, as I do all their music!
> 
> I also highly recommend having an amazing friend (and [seriously fantastic writer and vidder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdwolfpup/pseuds/sdwolfpup), including several J/B fics which you should definitely read) like SD Wolfpup, without whom literally none of this would have been possible. Her squee got me into this pairing in the first place, and she has been phenomenally supportive through the looong past few months of this process--this story has been a huge challenge for me in several ways, and having her enthusiasm, encouragement, keen eye, thoughtful suggestions, and general hand-holding at every step has been invaluable. (Also the near-daily pictures of Jaime/Brienne/Nikolaj/Gwen that she texts me are pretty ~inspirational as well. :D) She is the actual best and getting to share a fandom with her lights up my heart in a very particular way, and I'm unbelievably grateful for all the time and energy she's put into this. Any remaining mistakes/issues are my own.
> 
> This first chapter is pretty short--an _amuse-bouche_ , if you will--but they get longer as we go along. :)

The food was _good_.

Wondering if he'd slipped into an alternate universe or if this latest excruciating Lannister gala was the straw that had finally driven the camel up the wall, Jaime tried another spoonful of the cioppino in front of him. And there it was again: the sweet-acid tang of tomato bolstered by the warmth of bay leaf, a tender clam bursting into salt on his tongue, and behind it all, a fearless flare of red pepper, just this side of too much, enough to bring the blood rushing and make him crave a cool drink and the next bite with equal fervor.

"Tyrion," he said, interrupting whatever his brother had been talking about, "this food is good."

Tyrion sighed and sat back in his chair. "You know, there are times I feel that I might not have your undivided attention." He took an elaborately disconsolate sip of his wine.

"I'm serious," Jaime told him. "Have you tried this?" He pushed his bowl toward Tyrion. "It's _good_."

"Of course it's good," Tyrion answered. "You know as well as I do that Chef Baratheon--" he dropped his voice low on the name, adding a dramatic flourish of his hand--"is a rising star, and Lannister Corp can only employ the best for our…" He looked around. "Whatever it is we're doing here."

Jaime snorted. He had no idea what the occasion here was, either; they were all essentially the same, and he just showed up when he was told to, a decoration that ran mostly on alcohol, then packed himself away until the next one. The cioppino, though--that was worth waking up for. "Renly Baratheon's food is fine. It's passable. On some days it even approaches decent. But this." He stabbed a mussel with his seafood fork and brandished it. "This is _good_."

Tyrion raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying--"

"I'm saying that Renly didn't make this food any more than I did." He wouldn't let it past his lips, but it was whispering in his blood, that there was a time when he could have made something like this, found the perfect alchemy to make bored socialites sit up straighter in their low-backed gowns and make CEOs hungry for the kill. He'd gone more for elaborate preparations but this chef, whoever they were, could make a simple fisherman's stew into a masterpiece, and suddenly, Jaime had to know who it was.

"Wait," Tyrion said, as Jaime pushed his chair back from the table.

"What?" Jaime could barely keep himself from tapping his foot.

Tyrion raised a hand. "Let me order some more wine before you go--I need to stock up in case you bother the help into quitting."

Jaime rolled his eyes. "As if you don't have personal staff entirely dedicated to keeping you well-oiled," he shot back, but he gave his brother a quick wink and salute before he gave in to the tug of his blood and made his way back to the kitchen, striding through the large double-doors like he still belonged there. 

The figure directing the kitchen traffic, cloaked in a calm aura of command, had his back to Jaime, but it was still obvious right away that this chef was much too tall to be Renly Baratheon. When the man spun around to sprinkle a last bit of garnish on a departing dish, something about his stance, the slight curve of hip, the smallest of contours underneath double-breasted buttons, made Jaime realize with a start: not only was the man not Renly Baratheon, but he wasn't a man at all.

Curiosity spiking even higher, Jaime waded carelessly into the stream of humanity rushing through the kitchen, ignoring the white coats, white shirts, and black bowties eddying around him. "Who are you?" he demanded.

Her eyes snapped up to meet his, and she was saying something, but for a moment all he could do was blink, stunned by wide and brilliant blue. Angry blue, as well, and he felt her hand close over his arm and drag him to the least-crowded corner of the kitchen. Which wasn't saying much; their chests were only a few inches apart and Jaime could still feel the occasional jostle at his back (accompanied more than once by a pointed _"Behind"_ as whoever it was squeezed past).

_Either she's ridiculously strong or I need to start working out more_ , he thought, given that his feet had nearly left the floor when the woman had yanked on him, but she was speaking again and he supposed he should probably start listening at some point. 

"Sir! I said you can't be in here, for your own safety." 

"I'm the one paying for your services, so I'll see to my own safety." He had to tilt his head up slightly to meet her eyes; a few strands of straw-blonde hair had escaped her toque and were stuck to the side of her flushed face, just in front of her ear. She looked fully prepared to remove him by force if necessary, and though her eyes were the only attractive feature the gods had seen fit to grant her, he felt a slight tug in his groin nonetheless. "Who are you?" he demanded again, to cover it. Clearly he'd been single for too long.

"Tyrion Lannister is paying for my services," she answered crisply, chin raised, "and I know you're not him."

Jaime leveled a lazy grin at her. "Ah, well. Tyrion Lannister is my brother, and this event is made possible by the bounty of our family coffers. Which are paying for Renly Baratheon's services, and _I_ know you're not _him_."

It was her turn to blink, and her steam-flushed face somehow went even brighter red. "You're… you're…" Her gaze flickered down, toward his right hand.

He instinctively tucked it behind his back, ignoring the stretch and pull of damaged tendons as he curled his thumb and two remaining fingers into a fist. "Yes." It always seemed to come down to that these days, as if he wasn't a man anymore, just a crosshatch of lurid scars and even more lurid headlines. He inclined his head toward her, feeling the edge of his mockery slice into his own throat when he spoke. "Jaime Lannister. I'd say I'm at your service, but we've already established that you're at mine." Since she hadn't answered his previous questions, he tried a different tack. "Where the hell is Baratheon?"

Those incredible eyes darted back up to his face, and though one of her hands was twisting in the ties of her apron, she squared her shoulders. "He was ill, Mr. Lannister. He'd hoped to make it, and by the time he figured out that he couldn't, it was too late to inform your brother, so we…" He saw her throat move with a swallow. "We improvised."

He couldn't help but smile, feeling one of his eyebrows creeping up toward his hairline. Her attempt at being deferential barely papered over her earlier stubbornness, and the combination was more charming than he wanted to admit. "You… improvised."

She nodded jerkily. "Yes, Mr. Lannister." When he didn't respond right away, she went on, "Is… is the quality of the food not acceptable, sir?"

_The food. Right_. Astonishingly, he'd forgotten all about it for a moment, but thinking of it now, he could still feel an echo of its flavors, like sunbursts in his mouth. And the way her teeth were worrying her bottom lip left him no doubt that she'd been the one responsible. 

Teasing her was one thing, but he wouldn't outright lie, at least not about something like this. "On the contrary," he told her, "it's far better than a hack like Baratheon could ever hope to make."

He watched that deeper flush spread over her face and disappear beneath her collar. "Chef Baratheon is brilliant," she fired back fiercely. "I'm lucky to be able to share his kitchen."

He knew his compliment had landed briefly before it was buried underneath her loyalty, and abruptly, he was angry. Angry that she'd defend someone so obviously inferior to her, angry that Baratheon obviously hadn't made it clear to her just how good she was, angry most of all that she made him miss everything that dangled just out of reach of his damaged hand. "Who are you?" he sneered. "Some lovesick _commis_ trailing around after the head chef?"

She sputtered wordlessly at first, then her hand tightened around her apron again, clenched into a fist this time. "My name is Brienne Tarth, and I'm not a _commis_ , I'm Chef Baratheon's sous chef."

The sputtering had caught his attention, though, and intuition flared. "But you are lovesick, aren't you?" he pressed. 

Her mouth dropped open and her blush darkened so much it looked almost painful. 

"Oh, gods," he groaned, "you _are_."

"Not any--I mean I never--" she stammered, then gritted her teeth. "I don't see how that's any of your business." 

"Oh, _commis_." He shook his head, tongue ticking against his teeth, torn between amusement, satisfaction at having been right, and still that burn of frustration at the waste of it. "I think you're missing some equipment for that job."

Her nostrils flared and her shoulders tensed as she leaned toward him, and for a bright and brilliant second Jaime was sure she was going to hit him. But as he watched, she wrestled her reaction back until it was just barely leashed behind the fire in her eyes. "I have to get back to work, Mr. Lannister," she ground out.

Adrenaline sparked in his nerve endings, like the bite of a hot pepper on his tongue. "Yes," he murmured, hardly aware of what he was saying. Then, as he saw confusion start to creep in around the edges of her fury, he mentally shook himself and cleared his throat. "Yes," he said again, tugging at his jacket to straighten it. "Yes, of course. I simply wanted to..." He trailed off, realizing that whatever it was that he wanted from her, simple no longer described it. "Your food is exceptional," he managed eventually. "You should be proud."

She blinked. "Thank you." There was a wrinkle between her eyebrows, and she narrowed her eyes at him a bit, as if she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Jaime felt the beginnings of a hysterical laugh tickling at the back of his throat, so he inclined his head again before it could get out. 

"Goodnight, Brienne Tarth." He turned on his heel to go.

"Goodnight, Mr. Lannister," he heard her say behind him, and he was very nearly to the door before some ridiculous impulse overruled him and he turned back. 

"You can call me Jaime," he called to her, and one of the servers snickered a bit as she hurried past him, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

Brienne just stared at him in response, those stunning eyes searching, measuring. Then one of the station chefs caught her arm and her attention, pulling her back into the kitchen's current. 

Still, just before he turned to leave again, Jaime caught her craning her neck to look at him over her shoulder. He grinned, and backed out of the swinging doors, holding her gaze as long as he could.

When he found his way back to the table, Tyrion took one long look at him and raised an eyebrow. "What the hell happened in there?'

Jaime's laugh was rueful. "I wish I knew."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The relief lasted for all of three days, right up until Brienne’s phone rang with an unfamiliar number and when she answered it, a warm, rich voice purred in her ear: “Hello, Brienne Tarth. This is Jaime Lannister.”_
> 
> _Reflexively, Brienne held the phone away from her face like it was a snake, mouthed a silent and stunned_ fuck off _at it, then managed to bring it back to her ear despite every instinct telling her to stomp on it before it sucked her into the Matrix. “Mr. Lannister,” she said in her most professional voice, grasping desperately at calm._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thank you all for such a lovely warm welcome to the fandom! You are amazing! <333

“What the hell happened last night?” Margaery demanded the instant that Brienne’s ass hit the chair at their favorite coffee shop the next morning.

Brienne could only laugh. “Honestly, I wish I knew.”

“All I know is that Loras told me that Renly got sick, and Jaime freaking Lannister stalked you into the kitchen to yell at you and then tell you how awesome you were,” Margaery slapped a hand down on the table, making their coffee mugs jump. “Jaime for-fuck’s-sake-freaking Lannister, Brie! What the hell?”

Brienne could feel familiar heat creeping up the backs of her ears, acutely aware that heads were starting to swivel toward them, but she was still laughing as she pressed a hand over Margaery’s. “Calm down, it wasn’t that big a deal.” Which was exactly what she’d repeated to herself over and over the night before, collapsed in her bed with her feet aching and her heart stuttering every time she remembered his face so close to hers, the hint of stubble starting above his perfectly pressed collar and the malachite glitter of his eyes as he’d complimented her work.

Jaime Lannister. Had complimented _her_ work.

Right before he’d diminished her into some caricature of a lovelorn maiden.

Right before he’d complimented her again, and told her to call him Jaime, and walked backwards out the door while staring directly into her soul.

“Seriously, though, what the hell?” she muttered, and Margaery gave a triumphant cackle.

“I am _saying_. I mean, he may be a rich asshole career-ruiner, but that guy knows his stuff, and now he knows _your_ stuff, and that could be a good thing, right?”

“I...” Brienne shrugged. When she’d taken over for Renly the night before, she’d done it mostly out of a desire to keep up their end of the contract, though of course she’d hoped that the food would go over well. She’d basically expected to do her job and go home, like she did every day, not find herself at the center of a scene that had inspired all the rest of the staff to crack jokes about hungry lions for the rest of the night. “You know guys like that,” she said finally, “they get distracted for a minute by something shiny and then they’re on to the next thing. I’m sure I’ll never hear from him--or his brother--again.”

Margaery nudged her foot under the table; she was wrinkling her nose and her brown eyes were soft. “You’re pretty damn shiny, Brienne.”

That sent a rush of grateful warmth through Brienne’s chest, but when she thought of Jaime Lannister--his lethally tailored suit, his casual air of ownership of everything around him, the fact that she’d once waited in line three hours just for a few samples of his food--it seemed barely possible that they occupied the same planet, much less that they’d occupy the same space on it for any more than the length of a fever dream in a hot kitchen. “Believe me,” she said, shaking her head, “I’m not their kind of shiny.”

Margaery made a sound between a snort and a groan, and opened her mouth to say something, but Brienne cut her off with, “It’s not happening! And I wouldn’t want it to! New topic!” 

At that, Margaery growled, made a V with her fingers and pointed from her eyes toward Brienne’s. “Tabled, _for now_ ,” she intoned, and Brienne moved on with a sigh of relief.

* * * * * * *

The relief lasted for all of three days, right up until Brienne’s phone rang with an unfamiliar number and when she answered it, a warm, rich voice purred in her ear: “Hello, Brienne Tarth. This is Jaime Lannister.”

Reflexively, Brienne held the phone away from her face like it was a snake, mouthed a silent and stunned _fuck off_ at it, then managed to bring it back to her ear despite every instinct telling her to stomp on it before it sucked her into the Matrix. “Mr. Lannister,” she said in her most professional voice, grasping desperately at calm.

“I told you to call me Jaime.”

_Oh, gods_. She cleared her throat. “Mr. Lannister,” she repeated firmly. “How can I help you?”

“Lannister Corp is hosting a cocktail party on Friday,” he told her, “and I’m hiring you.”

“I--I’m--” she stammered. “Friday? As in _this_ Friday?” If someone had asked her what the current day was, she honestly wouldn’t have been able to tell them just then, but whenever Friday was, it was far too soon.

“Yes,” he answered. “You are available, aren’t you, _commis_?”

Pride stiffened her spine. “My name is Brienne, and if you’re interested in hiring me as the head chef for your event, then I expect you to address me as one,” she snapped. 

His laugh rolled over the line and seemed to curl up somewhere around where her neck met her shoulder. It was an annoyingly pleasant sensation. “Of course, my lady.”

“Exactly none of that sounds like ‘Chef Tarth’,” she muttered, but the title made her think of another barrier to this arrangement. “Renly,” she said. “I can’t just--”

“Renly,” and the name dripped with sarcastic innuendo, “is being well-compensated for loaning you, and the rest of his staff, to us for the evening.”

“Oh,” she said. Rich people’s lives were… so very much not like her life.

“Indeed,” he answered. “So.” There was a pause, then he pressed, “Do we have an agreement?”

She hesitated. There was something vaguely indecent about the idea of being loaned out like a punch bowl, but then again, if things went well, the exposure could be exactly what she needed to put her over the top. “Why don’t you just hire Renly?” she asked, half-stalling and half-testing. “Unless you’re planning to invite my father, none of the people at your event will have ever heard of me.”

“Because what’s the point of being obscenely wealthy if I can’t hire the best?” he asked her simply, and _fuck_.

There was no way she could say no after that.

* * * * * * *

“Are you sure?” Podrick, Brienne’s favorite dishwasher, was shifting from foot to foot, his face scrunched up with concern. He looked halfway dead on those feet, however, and given that Brienne figured her adrenaline rush would keep her up until the wee hours of the morning anyway, there was no reason to keep him later.

“Yes, Pod. I can wash my own knives, I promise.” She’d had them since culinary school, and they were well-worn but still the best she could afford; besides that, they’d been through the wars together, she and those knives, and they were hers to care for, no matter how much she trusted Pod.

“But--” he started, and she fixed him with a sharp look. 

“ _Pod_. Go home. That’s an order.”

“Yes, Chef,” he answered reluctantly. He reached behind him to pull his coat on, and a broad grin spread across his face like sunshine. “You kicked ass tonight, Chef.”

Her answering grin was already in full bloom before she could even think about trying to be modest. “ _We_ did,” she said instead, and reached out for a fist-bump before he disappeared through the double doors.

When he was gone, she turned out most of the lights in the kitchen; even the fluorescent hum felt like too much, after the chaos and focus of the past few hours. In the peaceful dimness that was left, she stood at the sink and lovingly scrubbed her precious knives as she let a highlight reel of the evening unfurl in her brain.

They _had_ kicked ass tonight. Margaery had helped her plan a simple but elegant menu, and the Lannisters’ people had provided her with the highest-quality ingredients she’d ever seen. The staff had run like a well-oiled machine, if that machine were also heartwarmingly concerned that its head chef be successful. And if the multiple new requests already on her voicemail--courtesy of the business cards that had made their way to a few key tables--were any indication, they’d all achieved their purpose with flying colors.

She’d half-expected Jaime to be hovering in the kitchen throughout the night, but he’d mostly stayed away, only dropping in a few times to request an extra plate of something or to make sure they had everything they needed. She’d been even more shocked that he’d been polite and professional, as if he, too, was a part of their determined little mechanism, albeit a part wearing a dark suit that slid down his body like a caress and a red and gold tie obviously calculated to bring out the gold flecks in his eyes--eyes that she’d caught staring intently at her more than once when she’d turned from some task or other.

It was probably an extremely good thing he hadn’t spent more time in the kitchen.

“Don’t you have people for that?” came an increasingly-familiar voice from behind her, as if she’d summoned him with the thought.

Brienne jumped and barely avoided slicing a finger. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to surprise someone holding a knife?” she asked, though given how well the evening had gone, she couldn’t get much real force behind it.

“People tell me so many things,” he said on a dramatic sigh, then slanted a grin at her as he picked up one of her clean knives and a discarded dish towel and began drying the blade, the towel caught between the two undamaged fingers of his right hand.

His suit coat was gone, his sleeves rolled up, and Brienne found herself staring at the shift of muscles on his forearms for a long moment before it caught up to her that “dish-drying assistance from the employer” was very unlikely to be part of her contract. “Mr. Lannister, I--”

“ _Jaime_ ,” he interrupted, and there was something hovering around the edges of his eyes that she would have sworn was hurt, if that hadn’t been impossible.

But here, just the two of them and his forearms in this darkened kitchen, there was no way that was happening, so she sidestepped it altogether. “You don’t have to do that,” she told him, tilting her head toward the knife.

“I know,” he answered, and kept on doing it, which seemed to be the end of that discussion.

After a short silence, he offered, “The gazpacho was a bit underwhelming, but the crab cakes were excellent.” He tossed his golden hair out of his eyes with a flick of his head, and his gaze met hers. “You have a real gift for seafood.”

Her immediate impulse--honed by years of defending her skills to condescending men--was to argue with the first part, but he’d gone out of his way to promote her and now he was standing there in his ludicrously expensive suit drying her dishes, and if it came down to it, she hadn’t been thrilled with the gazpacho either. “I’m from Sapphire Island,” she said instead, letting herself focus on the positive. “I grew up fishing with my dad. Well, fishing, clamming, mussel hunting--if it lived in or near the water, we ate it.”

“How very idyllic,” he said, with a smile that felt sharp at the edges, and she looked back down at the knife in her hands, the back of her neck heating. _Idiot_ , she berated herself, for letting her guard down.

“I suppose you wouldn’t understand,” she said briskly in the direction of the faucet, and rinsed the knife with cool efficiency. The sooner she was finished with this, the sooner she could collect her paycheck and leave.

“No.” His laugh was short, as bitter as baking chocolate. “My father wouldn’t have dreamed of going fishing with his employees.”

_Poor little rich boy_ , she wanted to think, wanted to say, but something in his voice tugged at her. “What about your brother?” she asked. Tyrion had come back to the kitchen earlier to shake her hand and call her--admiringly--a giantess, and from the easy banter that had flowed between him and Jaime, she assumed he was a safer topic.

Sure enough, the smile that lit Jaime’s face was warm and genuine. “Oh, Tyrion and I didn’t do anything as useful as that,” he said. “Mostly I hit anyone who was rude to him, and he insulted me regularly to keep my ego in check.”

The easy target was too tempting. “Clearly _that_ didn’t work,” she couldn’t help responding, and flushed for an entirely different reason when he laughed.

She grinned and handed him the knife she’d been working on, hilt-first. When she reached for the next one, she was surprised to find the counter next to her empty.

She was even more surprised to find herself disappointed.

Still trying to process what that was about, she turned back to see that he’d started carefully wrapping up her knives in their case. When he was done, he presented them to her with a flourish and a small bow.

“Your weapons, _commis_.”

She rolled her eyes, but it was hard to be truly annoyed at him when he was smiling at her like that--and he clearly knew it, too. The bastard. She snatched the case out of his hands.

“And now,” he went on, digging in his pocket and producing an envelope, “for a job well-done.” When she took it, she could see the name _Lannister Corp_ through the plastic window. Given the exorbitant fee she’d quoted him in a last-ditch effort to scare him off from whatever he was trying to do, it seemed like the check should feel heavier, somehow. 

“Thank you,” she said. She considered holding out her hand for him to shake, wasn’t sure if that would remind him of his injury, and straightened her spine instead. “Thank you for the opportunity.”

“Thank you for making this event slightly less horrific than usual,” he answered. “And you're too good to be hidden away in Renly's shadow."

Brienne didn't know how to respond to that, caught between her pride in her work and her loyalty to Renly, so she just stood there for what felt like an eternity, clutching her knives in front of her. _Just thank him again and go home_ , she told herself, except Jaime wasn't going anywhere either, just watching her, until she saw his throat move as he swallowed. 

"Speaking…” He paused, cleared his throat a bit, and went on, “Speaking of shadows, it's late and everyone else is gone. I feel responsible for your safety. Can I offer you a ride home?”

The offer swept her knees out from under her; Brienne’s heart knocked hard against the inside of her ribs, tangled between excitement and foreboding. This was a man whose work she’d admired for years, and the one who’d given her her first real chance in the spotlight, not to mention being one of her first serious professional crushes. Not that she was naïve enough to think that he wanted anything even crush-adjacent from her, but still, her twenty-year-old self was yelling at her to take the chance for a few more minutes in his presence. On the other hand--no pun intended--he was also the man who’d ruined Aerys Targaryen without any apparent hint of remorse, and she barely knew him.

“That’s so kind of you,” she said finally, “but my car is just down the block, and I won’t have time to come get it in the morning.” Her throat felt stretched around the stiff formality of the words.

As she watched, his expression shuttered, all except a light burning behind his eyes like a single candle, way back there in the dark. “Ah. Well, then. Goodnight, Miss Tarth.”

She gathered her things as quickly as she could, feeling his eyes on her the entire time, until her skin felt too tight and her whole body was hot and she could hardly see her way to the door, like her vision itself wanted to stay with him. She mumbled something to him on her way out, and she was so flustered that it was only later, huddled on her couch with her eyes clamped shut over the memory of the look on his face, that she realized what she’d said: 

“Goodnight, Jaime.”

She groaned and buried her head under a pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've tried to keep my pop culture references vague in this story but I could not resist the Matrix line. Please forgive me. :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Though he’d tried to keep his distance, she’d haunted his thoughts throughout the night, an oasis of blunt honesty and artistry in the middle of all the meaningless glitter that usually made up his life these days. Then she’d rejected him, then followed up her rejection of him by looking at him with big seascape eyes and saying his name, and suddenly he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t focus on anything else until he turned up at some dilapidated building and asked her why. Asked her to say it again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content warning:** This chapter contains brief, fairly vague references to sexual assault in the workplace, not directly involving any of the main characters. If you'd like a summary of the chapter or a version of it with those parts redacted, just let me know. <3
> 
> And on a lighter note, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you again for the lovely kudos/comments/subscriptions/bookmarks. Writing in a new fandom is scary and you all have been so supportive. I appreciate you!
> 
> I also appreciate my fantastic beta SD Wolfpup, who helped me work through SEVERAL versions of this chapter until we both felt good about it. She is amazing.

It was ridiculous. Laughable, really. Jaime had beautiful, wealthy, and sometimes even intelligent women constantly throwing themselves into his path--not as many as there had been B.A., Before Aerys, but certainly plenty. Of course, none of them had held a candle to Cersei, and even though he’d sworn months ago that he’d touched her for the last time, she’d still been the standard to which he compared every woman he met, and therefore he’d remained blissfully unmoved by them.

But now, some unknown genius giantess had spent an evening benevolently commanding a kitchen into greater culinary work than King’s Landing had seen in years; all the while, she'd kept her staff functioning as a smooth and cohesive unit, everyone pulling toward the same goal, in the way that Jaime had once dreamed of for his own kitchen. Though he’d tried to keep his distance, she’d haunted his thoughts throughout the night, an oasis of blunt honesty and artistry in the middle of all the meaningless glitter that usually made up his life these days. Then she’d rejected him, then followed up her rejection of him by looking at him with big seascape eyes and saying his name, and suddenly he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t focus on anything else until he turned up at some dilapidated building and asked her why. Asked her to say it again.

Tortured by the sound of his own name. He was pretty sure this was a new low.

The cheap vinyl lettering on the storefront door read simply _Brienne Tarth: Chef_ , spaced with deliberate precision. _Catchy_ , Jaime thought snidely as he tried the door and found it open. The space inside could most charitably be termed a work-in-progress, but since Jaime wasn’t feeling particularly charitable at the moment, he decided, with a petty kind of glee, to call it what it was: a shithole. 

A shithole with some potential, he had to admit; there were wide counter workspaces and a double-oven in the back that had seen better days, but had been quality once and was probably still salvageable. The light filtering through the scratches on the front window gave the space a diffused glow, and without any authorization from him whatsoever, he suddenly had a crystal-clear vision of what it could be: a blur of white uniforms and shouted instructions, steam and seductive scents drifting through the air, and in the center of it all, Brienne, her freckles standing out like a treasure map in her heated face.

Jaime shook himself. _You’re pissed off_ , he reminded himself firmly, slamming the door on the future and focusing on the present, where he followed the sound of voices to a small office in the back.

“--going to get it to you,” Brienne was saying. “I’ve still got two days.”

“Well, you were late last month.” The voice was male, low and rough. Jaime instantly wanted to punch it.

“I know,” Brienne answered. Hovering out of view outside the office door, Jaime angled himself so that he could see her face, pale underneath her professional calm. “I told you, it won’t happen again.”

The man snorted. “That’s what they all say.” He leaned onto the battered desk and into Jaime’s field of vision, long, greasy hair hanging around his shoulders, and his face much too close to Brienne’s. “I know your type, kid,” he sneered. “Starry-eyed dipshits who only care about their precious _dreams_ and think we all need to bow down or get out of the way so they can come true. Well, I’ll tell you something about dreams, sweetheart: they don’t pay the fucking bills, and last month, neither did you. And that’s grounds for immediate eviction.”

“I--” Brienne started, but Jaime’s vision was swimming red around the edges, and he strode into the room, pasting on his business face like a mask, one that said _I’ll destroy everything you love and I’ll drink champagne while I’m watching it burn_.

“What seems to be the problem?” he asked, pleasantry draped over steel.

“It’s nothing,” Brienne said hurriedly. “Mr. Locke is my landlord, and he’s here to collect my rent. Two days early,” she added more quietly, with steel of her own.

“Jaime Lannister,” Jaime said, holding out his scarred hand.

Locke’s lip curled. “I know who you are. Seen you all over the internet.” He gestured at Jaime’s hand, but didn’t take it. “Such a shame about your little accident. Hate to see bad things happen to such a fine society boy.” 

Jaime’s blood was well and truly simmering now, but he only smiled; he’d had much worse thrown at him over the past five years, from much better sources. Still, he resisted the urge to tuck his hand into his pocket, and let it fall casually to his side instead. “If you know who I am, then you must know that anyone associated with Lannister Corp is certainly more than capable of paying whatever you choose to extort from them.”

“Oh, so you’re _associating_ , are you?” Locke’s tone was thick with innuendo. He gave Brienne a long, slow once-over, and shook his head. “No accounting for taste, I guess.”

Jaime didn’t have any experience throttling people left-handed; he did, however, find himself more than willing to try, until Brienne scrambled out from behind the desk and laid a hand on his arm. 

“Here,” she said to Locke. She turned back to the desk, pulled a checkbook out of it, and scribbled on the top check; Jaime counted at least five digits in the number as she held it out. “This should cover me for the next three months. So we don’t have anything further to discuss, here, do we?”

Locke looked at her, then the check, then back at Jaime. “Good luck keeping a leash on this beast,” he said, then snatched the check and slithered out the door.

“Figures that he can’t even threaten me directly when a man is here,” Brienne snapped when he’d disappeared from view. “Sexist prick.”

Well, that certainly wasn’t the reaction Jaime had expected. “I--” he started, still half-contemplating going after Locke to test his ambidexterity, and utterly unsure of what he was going to say next.

She saved him the trouble. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Are you stalking me or something?” 

“You provided your business address to Lannister Corp,” he reminded her, “and as you know, I do match the most important part of that description. Though,” and he wrinkled his nose, “I must admit I expected more of a business and less of a--"

"Shithole?" she put in. "Yes, I'm well aware, thank you.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s your angle, anyway?"

“My _angle_?” Jaime repeated. Nothing about this conversation--nothing about this entire experience, really--was going like he’d thought.

“You show up in my kitchen, hire me out of nowhere, offer me a ride home afterward, and now you’re here, uninvited, trying to save me from my asshole landlord. Not that I needed saving,” she added vehemently. Her eyes were bright, her forehead creased with something that looked very similar to pain. “You don’t even know me. So yeah, I figure you must have some sort of angle, and I think I deserve to know what it is.”

_You tempt me to things I thought I’d given up, you’re the first person I’ve met in years that I actually want to know more about, I can’t stop thinking about your tongue wrapped around my name_... all of them were things he couldn’t say, things that would send her running, and rightly so. “I’m looking to invest,” was the first straw that presented itself to his grasping brain.

“Invest. In my shithole.” The depth of her disbelief was impressive, as if someone had spent days marinating the words in a vat of artisanal disbelief.

He tapped a finger to the side of his chin. “A bit of advice: you _might_ want to work on your elevator pitch.”

She barked out a laugh, and although she immediately tried to smother it by pressing her lips together, he could see the amusement lurking in her eyes; the fact that she was clearly annoyed at herself for being amused just made it even sweeter. And while he didn’t have or want his father’s killer business instincts, he at least knew when to press his advantage.

“Come on,” he said, giving her his best grin. “Don’t think I don’t know that you just signed over a significant portion of the check I gave you the other night to that ass-boil.”

Her mouth twisted. “Charming.”

He spread his hands out at his sides. "Yet accurate.” 

During the silence that followed, he practically had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from opening his mouth and fucking everything up. _Wait for it_ , he told himself. _Wait for it, wait for it..._

“All right,” she said finally, and he barely suppressed a celebratory fist pump. She pointed a long, sturdy finger at him. “You get one hour. In a public location of my choosing.”

Never let it be said that he couldn’t be gracious in victory. “Of course, my lady.” He swept out an arm out to invite her to lead the way.

“I regret this already,” she sighed as she strode past him to the door.

* * * * * * *

Jaime felt his eyes widen briefly when they walked into the coffee shop she’d brought him to and more than one of the people at the tables either nodded, smiled, or waved to her. It seemed that he was behind enemy lines already and they’d barely started. Yet she hadn't said no, and that was something.

“Hey, Chef Tarth!” said the brown-eyed barista, beaming all over his round face before turning his attention to Jaime with noticeably less enthusiasm. “Hi, Mr. Lannister.”

“I’m just Brienne here, Pod,” Brienne said, laughing. The easy affection in her voice made Jaime ache. 

“Yes, Chef,” the boy answered cheerfully. 

“Podrick is my best dishwasher,” Brienne explained to Jaime. “He worked the gig for you the other night. But he’s got a great future as a chef, too--he’s a wizard with pastry.”

Podrick was probably half Jaime’s age, but, caught up in the desire to make a good impression on Brienne and anyone who mattered to her, Jaime offered, “Well, you did an excellent job. Very… clean,” and wanted to bang his head against the pastry case when the boy gave him a confused and mildly pitying look.

Fortunately, it was easy to bury his humiliation in coffee orders: a double cappuccino for Jaime, and a black coffee for Brienne that somehow morphed into a half-sweet caramel latte under Podrick’s supervision. 

“He never listens,” she muttered as she raised the mug to her lips to sample it. Given the way she hummed and closed her eyes as the liquid hit her tongue, though, Jaime could only be grateful for Podrick’s interference.

She led the way to a corner table, which Jaime appreciated for its relative privacy as much as for the fact that she could barely fold her long legs underneath it, meaning that one of her knees was tantalizingly close to touching his. He endured that delicious torture for approximately ten seconds of awkward, spiked silence before he had to distract himself. “So,” he said, too heartily. “What is it that you want to do with the place, Brienne Tarth?”

The blush he was growing fascinated with was starting to tickle the edges of her face, but she cleared her throat and sat up straighter, her attempt at professional demeanor only slightly undercut by her faded jeans and even more faded t-shirt, the silhouette of some hair band still barely visible on it. “Well, the space will need a lot of work, as you can see. But…” On the table in front of her, her fingers twisted together. “I’d like to start a community kitchen,” she continued, all on one breath. “A space where people can come to learn how to cook, use better equipment for special occasions, create products for small businesses in a certified commercial kitchen, whatever.”

And despite how he’d teased her about her elevator pitch, Jaime could see that, too, as clear as he’d been able to see her as head chef when he’d first come into the space: she was still in the middle of everything, but now the image around her had more color, less predictability. Instead of the smooth purr of a sports car, the machine in this vision had the cheerful hum of a beloved restoration project, each piece given tender care as it slotted into place. Again, the idea called to parts of him he’d very deliberately buried after he’d learned how little honor and commitment and loyalty meant compared to a juicy story.

“And how would you finance this in the long run?” he asked, because she seemed to expect resistance, and because _please please please let me be part of this_ seemed to lack something in dignity. On the other hand, he was vaguely horrified to find himself using the word _finance_ as a verb, but. Desperate times.

“We’d cater, too,” Brienne said; he could almost see the hackles rising along the long, surprisingly graceful line of her neck. “Many independent businesses require multiple sources of income to sustain themselves.”

She sounded like she was parroting a textbook, and Jaime considered teasing her for that, but the visions were starting to multiply in his head now, and he wanted to know how it looked inside hers.

“Why?” he asked simply.

She sat back a little in her chair, as if he’d started speaking a foreign language. “What?”

“Why?” he repeated. He couldn’t help it; he rested his elbows on the table and leaned toward her, maintaining the distance she’d tried to erase. “You’ve got talent enough to be good; maybe even great. You can certainly make a comfortable living. So why risk it on a pet project like this?”

She blushed harder, her tone defiant, daring him to challenge her. “My mother died when I was very young, young enough that I don’t remember her,” she told him. “I also had a brother, and two sisters, but they all died, too. So for most of my life, it was just my dad and I, and I…” She trailed off, and when she continued, it was with a rasp in her voice. “I wasn’t good at doing laundry and I hated mowing the lawn, but I could make us dinner. I could make my dad something that would make him smile, and tell me that he was glad he’d gotten me for a daughter. I want other daughters to have that, and sons, and people who aren't either daughters or sons, too. Whoever wants to."

As she talked, each phrase felt to Jaime like a small vine, creeping across the table and wrapping gently around him. He took a breath. “My mother also died when I was young,” he told her. “I got to keep Tyrion, at least, and I also had…” He laughed a little, thinking of how to describe Cersei. “Well. She wasn’t my sister by blood, but she’d lost her parents, and so she practically lived with us. She used to tell people we were twins.” And then she’d often kiss him right in front of whoever she’d just told, and both of them would laugh hysterically over the inevitable reaction, but Jaime didn’t figure that was the best thing to bring up just now. “Anyway. We were on our own a lot, and Tyrion and Cersei hated each other almost as much as I loved them both, so I used to make food for us, as a way to get them into the same room for a while.” He snorted. “My brilliant theory was that they couldn’t argue if their mouths were full.”

Brienne smiled at him, the first genuine smile he’d seen from her since they’d been washing her beat-up knives together, and the sweetness of it was like someone had slipped caramel into Jaime's coffee too, sliding warm down the inside of his chest. 

“I take it that didn’t work out so well,” she said dryly.

He lifted a shoulder. “Oh, it worked sometimes. But I learned not to make anything that required sharp knives. Though the time they threw most of a basket of tomatoes at each other, the cook made us all help clean it up and still told Father anyway. We deserved that, of course, but Father was….” Jaime still shuddered at the memory. “ _Not_ pleased. I almost wished they’d gone for a nice, decisive stabbing.”

That got a laugh out of her, a loud, braying thing that delighted Jaime out to the tips of his fingers. There was no faking that, and he immediately wanted to hear it again.

In its wake, the silence settled again, but the edges of it had softened, and the gradual acceleration of Jaime’s heartbeat felt more like anticipation than nerves. 

Right up until she looked him straight and the eye and speared him with a “Why?” of her own.

And things had been going so well.

“Why what?” he asked, though he strongly suspected he knew. He'd just been hoping he could put it off a while longer.

“I answered your question, now you answer mine. Why did you quit?” she asked. “You were brilliant. I can tell you loved it. But you…”

_Fucked it up_ , his brain filled in helpfully. Still, “I was brilliant, hmm?” he tried, figuring it was worth a shot. That got one of those addictive blushes out of her, but she didn't waver from her course.

“I’m serious.”

All right, he’d try another route. He held up his right hand.

She huffed impatiently. “There are ways around that. Prep cooks exist for a reason. And besides, you must have decided to quit before that happened, otherwise you wouldn’t have… well.” She shrugged.

_Well_ indeed. Apparently they were doing this.

“Ah,” Jaime said, as if he were surprised. “You want to hear _that story_.” Even though she had absolutely no reason not to, the confirmation that she believed the worst rumors about him sliced deep. Having men like Locke sneer at him was one thing; Jaime had been telling himself for years that he didn’t give a fuck what people thought of him, and it was mostly even true, especially when those people were so blinded by the gilding or the drama that they didn't bother to look any further. But he’d hoped--the other night in that dark kitchen, and then today, just a moment ago--he’d hoped that she’d somehow seen more in him than that. He wanted there to be more for her to see. 

He breathed carefully, slowly, in and out. “You really want to know?” he asked, mostly stalling now. As he said it, he realized that he actually wanted her to know, wanted someone like her to judge him by what he'd done instead of the rote bullshit he generally used to deflect these inevitable questions from people who didn't deserve his honesty. If he told her the truth and she didn’t believe him, though--which, again, she had no reason to do, because they barely knew each other, and the asshole dilettante reputation that preceded him wasn’t all that far off in general, even if it didn’t know shit about the details--or if she believed him and condemned him for it, he’d be out in the cold again. Worse than before, after having stepped into the warmth of her kitchen for this brief, unexpected, ridiculous span of time.

But he'd already asked, and now she was nodding, swallowing hard.

He nodded back, gritted his teeth, and stepped over the precipice. 

“Don’t worry, _commis_ , it’s not a very long story,” he started, unable to resist a tiny shield of sarcasm between himself and whatever happened next. “We were a few weeks away from opening the restaurant together, and I started hearing whispers from the staff when they thought I couldn’t hear. Hints that Aerys was asking a bit too much from some of the girls, that they should be careful not to find themselves alone with him. I didn’t believe it at first, of course--it was so easy not to believe it. I thought they were just talking, just overreacting.” Of all of the many things he hated himself for, that was probably the top of the list, that he’d had the chance to stop it sooner, and he’d let it go by. “One day, I went back to check the walk-in and found him there with one of the servers. I don’t think he’d touched her yet, but she looked terrified, and Aerys was furious to be interrupted.” Jaime forced himself to pull air into his lungs; the memory was still carved into his brain, still showed up in his nightmares sometimes, usually with the added embellishment of the girl telling him that it was too late, he'd already failed.

He looked at Brienne, wondering if she was ready to denounce him yet, but she didn’t move to say anything, just watched him, her eyes huge and depthless. The rest of their surroundings faded into a blur, with only her in focus. 

“I could have gone public with it,” he said. “Told everyone that he was scum and that no decent person should work with him. But,” and there was that razor edge in his throat again, “the public has a way of forgiving powerful men.” He paused, images of that night swirling in his mind. His hand ached.

“The fire,” Brienne said quietly.

Jaime shook himself a little, her calm, steady voice like a lifeline, and nodded. “He had most of his money invested in that property, and I knew that the fire insurance hadn’t kicked in yet. Setting the fire was easy.” He gave a short laugh, and held his injured hand up again, giving her plenty of time to take in the twisting scars, the missing fingers and withered thumb. “A little too easy, as it turned out.” He'd woken up in the hospital with the headlines already against him; his father had been coldly furious, not just that he'd torpedoed a business deal but that he'd been stupid enough to get caught doing it. 

She didn’t touch him, didn’t make the slightest move to, but the steadiness of her gaze felt like hands on his shoulders, propping him up. “Everyone felt sorry for him, afterward,” she said. “And hated you. They said you’d burned the place down because you couldn’t handle sharing the spotlight.”

He snorted. “Right. I somehow didn’t account for the urge to make powerful men into martyrs. And after what I'd done, no one would have believed anything I said about him. I pulled every string I had left at Lannister Corp to do what I could for the women he'd hurt--found them good jobs, safe jobs, with people who could be trusted. It wasn't enough, but it was all I had left to do. Meanwhile, fortunately for all of us, Aerys fucked over someone else in trying to make his glorious comeback, and _that_ has proven to be the unforgivable sin. So he got what he deserved, in the end. And I haven't been behind a stove since.” His throat was raw, like every word had scraped on its way out; still, he felt lighter somehow, cleaner and drained, as if he’d lanced a wound. At least someone in this bullshit capital of the world knew the truth, now.

Still, he found himself avoiding meeting her eyes, afraid of what he’d see.

“Well,” she said eventually. “You don’t do anything halfway, do you?”

It startled a laugh out of him, and if it was just very slightly unhinged, hopefully she didn’t know him well enough yet to hear it. 

While he was still recovering himself, she pushed her chair back and stood. “Come on," she told him, in the same brisk tone he'd heard her use with her staff. "I live not too far from here. I'm going to make us something to eat, and you're going to help me.”

It was the last thing he'd expected her to say, and for a few long, hilarious seconds, all he could do was gape at her like he was one of the fish she'd mentioned before, flopping around on the floor of her boat. She watched him for a moment before she sighed, bit hard on her bottom lip, and started gathering her dishes. She started away from the table, even, but she’d only gone a couple of steps when she turned back, and the expression on her face was as raw and vulnerable as he felt. 

“Jaime? Are you coming?”

He stood up so fast he almost knocked over his chair.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You need more flash. More dazzle. Too bad you’re not a Lannister, everyone seems thrilled to gossip about us.” He tilted his head, appraising, but before Brienne’s self-consciousness could kick in, his face lit with a devious expression that immediately set off an entirely different set of alarm bells in her head. “You could be dating a Lannister. That might get them talking.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning to post this tomorrow but then I realized: Yuletide! So, a little ahead of schedule. :) If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a warm and wonderful and cozy holiday; if you don't, I hope you have a warm and wonderful and cozy Wednesday, ideally with a paid day off work.

Since Brienne had first heard the name Jaime Lannister, he’d been larger than life to her: first as a genius, then as a villain. At some point in that coffee shop, though, he’d become human--human enough for her to want to chase the haunted look out of his eyes, and human enough to fit inside her small apartment, even if the irritating glow from his handsomeness strained the seams a little.

And even if she really, really wished she’d given herself the time to at least sweep before she’d dared him to come join her.

At least she kept everything tidy by habit, especially her kitchen, where her ceramic containers and jars of utensils were lined up like little soldiers on the countertop. She didn’t have nearly the storage space she wanted, so she needed to make the most of what she had.

“What are you planning to make?” he asked as she started pulling ingredients out of her cupboards.

“Well, it’s the middle of the afternoon, and we just had coffee, so _we_ ,” and she made sure to overemphasize the word, “are making chocolate chunk cookies.” Though "plan" was a generous term for it given that she'd decided on it on the way over, and that absolutely nothing about any of this had been in her itinerary for the day, or her life.

“Cookies,” he repeated, as if she’d said _doorknobs_.

She set her stand mixer on the counter. “No chopping, rolls easily in one hand, precise outcome, and quick gratification.”

“I like that last one,” he said, because apparently he had some sort of innuendo disorder, and she rolled her eyes even as a quick rush of heat flared over her. 

“Do you really imagine that’s an advertisement for your skills?” 

He cocked an eyebrow at her, and for a bizarre, breath-stealing second she was sure he was going to offer to demonstrate more fully. But he just held out his hands in front of him, palms up. “Tell me what to do.”

So she did, relieved to let the moment pass and dedicate herself to mundane things like giving him instructions on measurements and stirring speeds. She’d perfected the recipe over the past few years, tweaking until it yielded just the right amount of crisp on the outside while maintaining a thick, chewy inside. She’d made it a hundred times by this point, so it was easy to focus on him, on the awkward grip of his left hand on an egg or a wooden spoon, the frustration that melted into determination and then into discovery and satisfaction as he experimented to find the best positions and angles. 

At first she felt almost voyeuristic, watching this reunion of old friends who had parted badly, but periodically he'd glance at her with a half-embarrassed, half-pleased smile that wrapped her right into the heart of what he was doing. They both moved easily in the small space, reaching over and around each other in a seamless kind of dance that Brienne usually only found with people she'd been working with for years. 

By the time the dough had come together--too soon; she wished she'd chosen a more complicated recipe--he was humming softly under his breath, a tune she couldn’t quite make out but which was oddly soothing, like the noise of the ocean outside her childhood bedroom window.

“About this size,” she told him, rolling out a two-inch ball of dough before flattening it slightly and holding it up for his inspection. He seemed to like specific instructions best; she figured they helped him find his footing. He nodded, looking thoughtful, and she busied herself with swiping spilled flour off the cupboard, to give him a bit of privacy while he worked out how to best form the dough in his injured hand.

“Like this?” she heard him ask. She turned back to see a massive cookie boulder next to her neat little pancake. He blinked at her innocently, and some part of her clapped its hands in glee, that not only was he back in a kitchen for the first time in--famously--years, but he was _playing_ in one, and she'd had something to do with it.

“Yes, that’s so great,” she told him, as if he were a very small child, “but just a _little_ bit smaller, okay?”

“No problem,” he said, taking back the dough. The oven beeped, signaling that it was pre-heated. When she looked back from checking it, a tiny ball had appeared on the cookie sheet, barely larger than the chocolate chunk in the middle of it.

She sighed and tossed it back in the bowl. “You,” she said, because he clearly expected it, “are ridiculous,” and his laugh filled the kitchen like refracted sunlight.

After they’d finally managed to get the first, appropriately-sized batch into the oven, he leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms while she started on the next sheet. “So how were you planning to pay for your kitchen of lost souls, if a charming and handsome investor hadn’t presented himself?”

“He did? Where?” she asked, making a show of looking around. He held a hand to his heart in fake injury, but his eyes were bright green with amusement. 

“I mean it, though,” he went on. “You don’t seem like the type to go into battle without a strategy. And Renly Baratheon’s coattails don’t seem like they’d be enough, pretty though they might be.”

“Renly has always treated me with respect, which is more than I can say for a lot of chefs I’ve worked with,” Brienne was honor-bound to point out. “But you’re right, it would take me years of working at this level before I’d have enough to do what I want to do." Even the gratifying number of requests on her voicemail wouldn’t cover her quickly enough for her liking. "And I don't want to be indebted to anyone.” 

“So?” Jaime pressed. "Not your money, not someone else's. What else is there?"

Brienne found herself pretending intense fascination with the dough in her hands. She’d told herself over and over again that there was nothing embarrassing about it, and of course she’d shared her idea with Margaery and Pod, but somehow saying it out loud to anyone else felt… odd. Annoyed at herself, she cleared her throat and made herself look Jaime in the eye. “I’m going to win _Game of Chefs_.” She threw the ball of dough down on the cookie sheet with a slap. 

His eyebrows went up. “Oh. Ooh, that’s good." Then, almost right away, "They’ll never let you on, though.”

“Why not?” Brienne snapped, more hurt than she wanted him to know. Not that she would normally want anything to do with a TV cooking competition, but for a twenty-five thousand dragon grand prize, she could make an exception. She needed to make an exception, because it was either that or be beholden to someone else--including a charming and handsome investor who hadn't, she realized, even given her his pitch after all.

Jaime clucked his tongue. “Don’t raise your hackles at me, _commis_ , I’m not questioning your skills. All I mean is that you’re much too calm and competent to be good TV.”

“I…” The words died in Brienne’s mouth as she tried to untangle whether that was an insult or a compliment.

“You need more flash. More dazzle. Too bad you’re not a Lannister, everyone seems thrilled to gossip about us.” He tilted his head, appraising, but before Brienne’s self-consciousness could kick in, his face lit with a devious expression that immediately set off an entirely different set of alarm bells in her head. “You could be dating a Lannister. That might get them talking.”

 _“What?”_ Brienne’s vision swam a little, and her face went so hot she was worried she’d melt the chocolate. Come to that, she was also worried that she’d blacked out for some reason and was hallucinating.

“Oh, don’t worry, we wouldn’t have to actually date,” Jaime went on, waving a hand. “All we have to do is create the appearance of dating.” 

“No one in their right mind is going to believe that you and I are dating.” Brienne was clinging to reality by her fingertips.

“Why not?” Jaime asked. He gave her a grin that had her resting a hip against the counter for support, though she tried to do it as surreptitiously as possible. “I’m very charming.”

“That's what you keep telling me,” she fired back. She grabbed another handful of dough, mostly for something to hold on to.

“I like this idea,” Jaime mused, tapping a finger against his arm. “We’ve already been seen together in public. And as our friend Mr. Locke so helpfully proved, if we’re associated in any way, people are already probably going to think we’re fucking. Might as well use it to our advantage.”

“What’s the advantage for you?” Brienne had seen the women that Jaime Lannister had been linked with, and she definitely didn’t fit the profile. She had about as much in common with Cersei Baratheon as she had with the Maiden.

“It’s been five years, and still the most interesting thing people can think of to say about me is that I’m an arrogant ass who ruined Aerys Targaryen,” he replied. “At least this might get them talking about how I’m an arrogant ass who seduced that squeaky clean up-and-coming chef with his manly wiles.” He turned to the sink and started washing his hands, for all the world as if everything was perfectly normal.

“There are multiple parts of that sentence that are going to put me off these cookies,” Brienne informed him.

Jaime shrugged and dug his fingers into the dough bowl again. “You asked.”

Part of Brienne was pragmatic enough to consider the possibility, which was why she had to repeat, _”No,”_ with even more emphasis. “If I win, I’m not going to have people saying I slept my way to the top.”

“Isn’t that what you were trying to do with Renly?” Jaime asked, and oh, fuck _that_. She yanked the bowl away from him. 

“Okay. We’re done here.”

“Wait, no, I’m sorry." Jaime grabbed the edge of the bowl with his undamaged hand, and the strength in his arm and the genuinely remorseful look in his eyes did make her think for a split second that there might be some upside to having him as a pretend boyfriend. “I’m sorry, I told you I was an ass. But listen, is Catelyn Stark still one of the judges?”

Brienne held tight to the bowl, refusing to let it closer to him. “Yes.”

“Well, there you go,” Jaime said. “The Starks hate the Lannisters, everyone knows that. The drama will help get you on the show, but if you win in spite of your regrettable association with me, it will be all the more glory to you.”

Brienne glared, still stuck on his accusation. “I’m not trying to sleep with Renly. And since you seem so obsessed with it, let me clear things up for you: I did have a thing for him once, but I’m over it, and I didn’t get into any of this for him.”

“All right,” he said mildly, with that slight incline of his head that made her think he'd have been bowing to her a few hundred years ago.

“And I don’t want your money or your help,” she continued. “I’m going to get into this competition on my own.” 

He nodded. “All right.”

Brienne kept her eyes narrowed at him for another long moment, then released the bowl. She was pettily pleased when the sudden lack of resistance made his hand snap back so that it hit him in the stomach. “Fine.”

He coughed a little and curled his arm around the bowl. "Good."

In the space afterward, while they stared at each other, Brienne could have sworn she could hear the butter melting. 

Then the oven timer went off, screeching into the quiet. Brienne jumped. 

“Finish up that sheet,” she commanded Jaime as she bent down to check on the cookies. They looked perfect, all puffy and melty and golden, and they smelled even better. She pulled them out and set them on the stovetop, put the next batch in when Jaime hurriedly finished the dough balls, and then she turned toward the refrigerator. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jaime lean in, see him inhale. 

For a split second she was tempted to deny him the cookies, as a punishment for his insinuations. He deserved the fruits of his labor, though, especially after all he'd been through to get there. And besides, she wanted to see him humbled by her perfect recipe.

She pulled the milk--fresh, from her favorite local dairy--out of the refrigerator, and filled two small glasses. The dessert plates she chose from her cupboard were thick and ceramic, a rich blue color that reminded her of home. Half a paper towel each, for a napkin, and a small pile of cookies on each plate, and she set everything on her well-worn kitchen table, pleased by the picture it made in the glow from the nearby window.

“Well?” she said, when he stayed hovering by the stove, watching her. It seemed to jolt him into motion, and he joined her at the table, laying the paper towel carefully over his knee. He picked up a warm cookie and brought it to his mouth; when he slipped it inside, she could almost see the flavors melt over his tongue. His eyes drifted shut. He made a noise low in his throat.

It was... _incredibly_ unfair.

“Congratulations,” she said, hoping he didn’t notice the rasp in her voice, and his eyes opened again. “You cooked something.”

The smile he gave her was one she hadn’t seen before, broad and pleased and verging on shy. “We did,” he said, without emphasis, almost as if he didn’t notice the difference in phrasing. Then, “I never made cookies, growing up. Father didn’t like us making sweets, me especially--he thought it was a sign of weakness.”

Anger curled down Brienne’s spine at the echo of all the men who’d told her that she should stop trying to make real food and stick to baking. “There are all different kinds of strength,” she told Jaime firmly, and he nodded and bumped his half-cookie against hers like a toast.

They munched in silence for another minute or two, until he asked, “When’s your audition interview? For the show.”

Spikes still not totally withdrawn, Brienne hesitated. “The day after tomorrow,” she said eventually. There was a smear of chocolate at the corner of his mouth.

“They'd be fools not to take you. Would…" He paused to take a sip of milk. "Would you like company?”

“Yes,” came out before Brienne could think, and she stuffed another bite of cookie into her mouth before she could say any more.

* * * * * * *

“Well, Miss Tarth, this certainly tastes delicious. You’re a wonderful cook, and you work well under pressure, which is a necessity for a competition like this.” Edmure Tully, culinary consultant and casting director for Game of Chefs, wiped his mouth delicately with a napkin and gave her a warm smile.

Brienne smiled back, hoping he couldn’t hear the thunder of her heartbeat. “Thank you.” The cliché ran through her mind that she could almost taste success--assuming that success tasted like copper, acrid in the back of her mouth.

“The problem is,” Tully went on, and Brienne’s stomach lurched, because of course there was a problem, there was always an utterly fucking reasonable problem, “the problem is, since our viewers can’t taste your food, I’m just not sure what’s going to make them tune in for you. I mean, happy childhood with a loving father, just enough money for culinary school, working your way through the ranks… I’m just not sure what your _hook_ would be, you know?”

Without her permission, Brienne’s eyes skipped to Jaime, who stood leaning against the wall in a corner of the studio, one foot crossed over the other. Thanks to… well, most of her life, she expected him to be laughing, or smug, or worse, _pitying_ , but he only met her gaze, one corner of his mouth tipping up ruefully. Then he rolled his eyes, too quickly for anyone but her to see. As if Tully was the one who was deficient. As if the two of them--Brienne Tarth from the western shore of nowhere, and the infamous Jaime Lannister--were in this together. 

“I see you brought a friend with you,” Tully murmured. “Can I give you a piece of advice, Miss Tarth?” He leaned closer, though his polite smile never wavered. “I’m not sure he’s the best mentor for a promising young chef like yourself.”

Brienne looked at Jaime again, and this time, his smile had that serrated edge to it. There was no way he could hear what Tully was saying, but he clearly got the gist of it, just like Brienne always knew what people were saying when they whispered about her.

Calm settled over her like frost on the surface of a lake. She stood up and held out her hand. “Well, Mr. Tully, thank you for your time. I appreciate the opportunity.”

He raised his eyebrows, and she hoped she wasn’t imagining the slight twist of disappointment in his smile, like he’d wanted her to fight for it. Like she didn't already have to fight for it every damn day. “We certainly appreciate you coming in. Come back next year, if you’d like--maybe the cast will be different then.”

“Of course,” Brienne answered smoothly. A freakishly tall blonde woman who strongly resembled Brienne Tarth, but couldn’t be Brienne Tarth because Brienne Tarth didn’t do this kind of thing, crossed the room, slid her hand into Jaime’s, and-- _oh holy gods_ \--kissed him on the cheek. 

“Let’s go, sweetheart,” she said.

She could see something flare in his eyes--shock, definitely, but also something else, something that shocked her in return--before he smothered it in lazy golden amusement. “I thought you’d never ask, my lady,” he answered, and behind them, Edmure Tully called out,

_”Wait.”_

Brienne smiled.

* * * * * * *

Brienne insisted on a written contract: one public appearance per week, plus any public events leading up to the show, and then, if she made it to finale, a public breakup beforehand to ensure that she'd win or lose on her own merits.

"Are you sure you don't want to have a lawyer look this over before we sign?" Jaime asked her, mostly teasing, as he read the neatly bullet-pointed page she'd printed up. He found his mouth curving despite--or maybe because of--her serious expression as she sat across from him at her kitchen table. 

She shrugged. "I trust you," was all she said, like that was a thing that people did, and that wiped the smile right off his face.

As soon as she'd made the final, decisive slash across the _t_ in her last name, he blurted out, "We should go to dinner." He wasn't sure where that had come from--where any of this had come from, honestly--only that he wasn't ready to go back to his empty apartment yet, where he couldn't watch each emotion chasing across her face.

Right now, the primary emotion was blatant skepticism. 

"Just to seal the deal," he clarified. "Like a handshake, but with food." Somewhere, he was pretty sure that Tyrion was deeply pained without knowing why.

After another few seconds of narrowed eyes, though, Brienne nodded slowly. "All right. I guess it would be good to get one of our appearances out of the way early."

"Exactly," he said, trying to ignore a twinge of disappointment.

Again, she was adamant about choosing the location, which was how he found himself at a dive sports bar on Visenya's Hill eating the best onion rings he'd ever had while Brienne yelled at the Tarth Pirates on TV. Jaime had always gone in more for soccer than baseball, but he discovered that he liked watching Brienne watch baseball. He liked the way her long fingers clutched the edge of the bar while she waited for a 3-2 pitch, the way she yelled at the umpires, the way she sucked in an appreciative breath after a particularly smooth double play. Between innings, they shared culinary school war stories and compared kitchen scars, and he welcomed the chance to focus on those instead of the scars that everyone else wanted to know about.

The game seemed to pass by much faster than he was used to. He offered her a ride home afterward, and when she accepted this time, he was glad his hand was under the bar, out of her line of vision, so she couldn't see when he thumped his fist victoriously against his knee. 

When they arrived at her place, she slid out of the car before he could determine whether he should shake her hand or hug her or promise to call on her anon. "See you next week," she said as she stood, then leaned back in to add, "And--thank you. That was… I had fun," before she slammed the door and hurried up the front steps of her building, turning to glance at him over her shoulder just before she disappeared inside. 

_That went well_ , he congratulated himself as he watched the door close behind her. _Professional. Respectful. Efficient._ He was sure his reputation was on its way up already, despite the fact that not a single soul at the bar had given any sign of recognizing him.

After that first night, though, he stuck scrupulously to the confines of the contract. 

At least he did for nearly forty-eight entire hours, when he was flipping channels and came across another Pirates game, realized he didn't know how a batter had ended up on first base despite swinging through a pitch without making contact, and texted Brienne.

_What just happened?_

Three telltale dots appeared on his screen almost immediately, then paused, then reappeared almost exactly three minutes later, as if she'd timed it.

 _?_ was all she said.

 _In the game_ , he explained. _Greyworm swung and missed, and then he went to first anyway. Wtf?_

 _Catcher's interference_ , she said. _Home plate umpire thought the catcher was too close to the plate to let the batter swing freely, so the batter gets awarded first base. I thought you didn't watch baseball?_

He elected to sidestep that. _So many rules_

 _That's a weird one. You get the hang of it_ , she replied.

He gnawed on his lower lip for a minute, glad she couldn't see him doing it, then levered himself up off his couch and went to the refrigerator. When he returned, it was with two beer bottles in hand. He arranged them side-by-side on the coffee table before taking a picture of them, with the game rather beautifully displayed--if he did say so himself--on his disgustingly large TV in the background.

 _Got an extra here if you're thirsty_ , he typed to her before he could talk himself out of it, though he winced afterward at the innuendo that had, for once, been unintentional.

Approximately sixty seconds and a hundred years later, her reply popped up. _That's not in the contract_

He sighed, wondering when he was going to learn to stop pushing his luck. _No. Sorry. Have a good evening._

He was debating whether he should guzzle both the beers first or just skip directly to whiskey when his phone vibrated again. 

_What's your address_

Even when he'd had two fully functional hands, Jaime had never typed so fast in his life.

Contract-wise, it was pretty much downhill from there. As soon as Brienne saw his kitchen, he could see her itching to get her hands on it, which gave him a pleased, proud glow in the pit of his stomach; he was an indifferent decorator at best, happy to let his father's designers have their way with the space, but the kitchen he'd pored over, choosing each surface and appliance with scrupulous care. Less pleasing, though, was admitting that it had sat largely unused for the past several years, and that his refrigerator contained mostly alcohol and takeout containers like he was some kind of clueless frat boy. In the wake of this shameful confession, Brienne just shrugged, pulled out her phone to order pizza, and showed up the next night with a bag full of groceries and a new recipe for swordfish.

They _did_ keep up their agreed-upon once-weekly public appearances, but those somehow blended into spending most of the rest of their evenings at each other's places, her working through recipes for the competition and him offering commentary and suggestions that either made her roll her eyes and ban him from the kitchen or gave a candlelight glow to her smile as they sampled the results together. On his favorite occasions, both of those things happened. 

They discovered a mutual love of popcorn TV, and a mutual hatred of mornings, though Brienne considered that a sign of weakness and forced herself out of bed at hours that surely even the gods abjured. She texted him smug pictures of her feet in running shoes that greeted him when he finally blinked himself awake with the summer sun far above the horizon, until his competitive nature kicked in and he found himself setting multiple alarms so he could be waiting at the bottom of her steps when she emerged. She even convinced him to go hiking with her once, and watching the way the early light illuminated the sweat along the back of her neck, the eternal, pale columns of her muscular legs, her easy unfettered smile as she breathed the forest air deep into her lungs, he had to admit--to himself, if never to her--that _occasionally_ good things happened before noon.

Overall, it was as if the past several years had been a blur of dull muddy hues and rounded edges, and now, with Brienne blunt and honest and true in his life, everything was so bright and sharp that he could almost cut himself on it. He craved it, though, like pins and needles signaling the blood rushing back into a limb that had fallen asleep, and the days slipped by before he knew it, bringing the competition--and their expiration date--inexorably closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As Jake Peralta once very wisely said: "DATE TIME! TIME TO DATE!" (Also I definitely stole the name Tarth Pirates from SD Wolfpup, though I don't know that she intended them to be a baseball team. But I am me, so: gratuitous baseball it is! My team is the Seattle Mariners so I ALMOST called them the Tarth Mariners instead, but 1) crossing the streams was too weird and 2) I could not in good conscience inflict that on Brienne.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Jaime! What in the seven hells are you doing? We're going to be late!" Brienne's voice sailed into Jaime's room, shattering his attempts to tie his bowtie. This was his third try and he just couldn't get it right for some reason, but after all the bullshit functions he'd attended in his life, he was not about to let the damn Game of Chefs Contestants' Pre-Show Gala Extravaganza Thing defeat him. Dammit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a longer chapter, and the next couple will each be about half the length of this one, so... prepare yourselves for both of those things according to your preference, I guess? :D Also, since several of you commented on the bit in the last chapter where Jaime is messing around with the cookie dough sizes, I wanted to give credit to a little family tradition on that one--I think my brother was actually the one who started it, and we were making our grandpa's signature meatball recipe at the time, not cookies, but. It has been making me laugh every time for many years, and I'm so glad it amused you all too! <3
> 
> Also also, I ran across this recently and it seemed pertinent: an [extreeemely detailed article on making the "ideal" chocolate chip cookie](https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best-chocolate-chip-cookies.html). Some of this is definitely more trouble than I'm willing to go to (chopping chocolate is a pain in the ass and the universe gave us pre-packaged chocolate chunks FOR A REASON OKAY) but I thought it was interesting nonetheless!

"Jaime! What in the seven hells are you doing? We're going to be late!" Brienne's voice sailed into Jaime's room, shattering his attempts to tie his bowtie. This was his third try and he just couldn't get it right for some reason, but after all the bullshit functions he'd attended in his life, he was not about to let the damn Game of Chefs Contestants' Pre-Show Gala Extravaganza Thing defeat him. Dammit.

"Oh, come right in," he called back, "no need to worry about locks or doors or any of those pesky formalities."

"Sandor let me in." Her voice came closer. "Which is what you get for having a doorman instead of a lock like a normal person."

"I have a doorman _and_ a lock," Jaime pointed out. It wasn't his fault that neither of those things mattered when his doorman liked Brienne better than him.

He could see her fingers curl around the frame of the open door. "Are you decent?"

"We've been dating for a month, you should know me better than to ask that," he told her, transferring his attention to his cufflinks as he crossed the room.

"Hope springs eternal," she said, dry as the midsummer day had been, and he came into the doorway, and--oh.

She looked… she was… the wheels of Jaime's brain were skidding on ice, or maybe they'd burst into flames; either way, he'd utterly lost control. Silky emerald fabric cascaded down her body like a waterfall, from the thin straps at her shoulders to gather at the waist and then all the long, long way to her toes, which had been painted with a clear glossy polish. He thought it was a dress at first, but as he looked down and then up her legs--gods, there was so much of her legs--he could see the fabric divided between them. Some hungry part of him growled that he could still have easily slid his hand inside and up, up until she stopped him or he lost his mind, one of the two. She looked like some sort of long-stemmed flower, and he didn't want to take another breath that wasn't inhaling her.

"Pretending to date," Brienne said, her voice sounding far away and somewhat strangled.

He dragged his eyes up to her face, which didn't help him at all in regaining his equilibrium; whatever magic had been done to it made her skin gleam like marble, her eyes taking on a slight hint of mermaid green in all that blue. "What?" 

Brienne cleared her throat. "We've been _pretending_ to date for a month."

And just like that, his uncontrolled tumble smashed into a wall. "Right," he said, tugging on the ends of his sleeves to straighten them. "Yes, obviously that's what I meant." 

Just because he was losing track of the line between performance and reality didn't mean that she was. Even if she'd fallen asleep on his couch a few nights ago, her wide mouth slightly open and her head tipping closer and closer to his shoulder until he couldn't take it anymore and gently closed the gap himself. Even if he found her face and her voice and her incredible bray of a laugh popping into his mind at all times of the day, and even moreso at night. Even if being around her was a support and a spur all at once, grounding and challenging him.

Even if all of that.

He went back to the mirror that stood next to his bed and forced himself to focus on his tie again.

"You look very nice," she told him, and he almost laughed at the prim and proper compliment when he'd just been incoherent with what he wanted to do to her. 

"Well, my purpose here is primarily decorative, isn't it?" He swung one end of the tie over the other. In truth, given what he knew of the guest list, he'd rather be attending his own funeral, but he wasn't about to send Brienne in alone, either.

"Don't sell yourself short--I think you're also supposed to hold my drink," she said, and he did laugh at that. "I saw your little fruit and cheese plate out in the living room," she went on. "It looked good. Maybe they'll put you to work in the kitchen." 

He barely held back the foolish smile that wanted to spread across his face at the praise. He'd been practicing more often lately, working out how to transfer his knife skills to his left hand. It was tentative and often frustrating, occasionally infuriating and (fortunately) even more occasionally bloody, but every time he managed some progress, he felt like his reality had shifted slightly, clicking him one step closer to himself. 

"I'm strictly front-of-house tonight, _commis_. And I see you found something to wear after all." There, that seemed like a polite, non-friendship-threatening way to put it. She'd gone on quite a rant a couple of weeks ago about how unreasonable it was that she had to get "polished up like some kind of doll" just to have the chance at a competition that should depend on skills rather than looks. Jaime had offered to take her shopping, since expensive polish over substance was one of his areas of expertise, but she'd flushed scarlet and refused, and he'd let it drop.

In the mirror, he could see that she was blushing again now, smoothing her hands over the fabric so that it pressed closer against her, briefly outlining the bumps of her nipples. He truly wasn't sure he was going to survive the next few hours, and yanked his almost-tied bowtie loose again just so he could get a bit of air.

"Catelyn Stark's daughter Sansa contacted me, actually," she was saying. "She said she'd heard about me from her mother and thought that 'a woman of my stature' might have trouble finding something appropriate on short notice. Apparently she likes to sew and was looking for a challenge, so she offered to make something for me."

"Ooh, fraternizing with a judge's daughter," Jaime teased, though he was already adding Sansa to the list of Starks that he could tolerate--right after her mother, though he'd never been able to admit that to anyone in his family, including Cersei. "Are you going to have to have a nasty public breakup with her now, too?" The doomsday clock about that was ticking louder in Jaime's head every day now, no matter how hard he tried to smother it.

Brienne wrinkled her nose. "It was very kind of her to want to help me," she said, in the stiff tone he'd discovered that she adopted when she was worried that her feelings were going to overflow and make a mess.

Jaime gave up on his tie for the moment and turned to face her. "It suits you," he said, because he'd only meant to tease her out of her nerves, not into more. While he was at it, he mentally pinned a little _Understatement of the Century_ award on his lapel and added, "You look very nice, too," in case he hadn't made that entirely clear. 

And oh, the slender straps across her shoulders made it so easy to see that her blush went all the way across her chest, and the dip of the neckline made it even easier to wonder where it ended. "Thank you." She said it to the floor, but he could just catch the curve of her smile down below her crooked nose, and it spread warmth through him, too, like honey.

Then, "Here." She angled her head back up abruptly and stepped close to grab the dangling ends of his tie. It put her reddened lips just below his eyeline and the tips of her fingers brushed over his collarbone and he could feel her breath on his cheek and while he assumed she was tying his tie, she could also have been tying a noose around his neck and he probably wouldn't have noticed. It was all he could do just to hold every muscle rigid, terrified that he'd break the spell or cross a line they couldn't come back from.

"There," she said after an agonizingly long, agonizingly short span of time. She tugged a bit at the bow, then put her hands on his shoulders and gently maneuvered him around until he was looking into the mirror again. "I've never done that before; I watched a video on it a few times before I came over, just in case. Did I do it right?"

He knew he was supposed to be looking at his tie, but was hard to look away from her face, still flushed pink, and the corner of her tentative smile caught between her teeth. He wondered if she'd have to fix her lipstick now. He wondered if, in that case, he might as well mess it up further. Because despite the makeup and the silky fabric and her painted toes, she was still Brienne, who yelled at him for adding too much paprika without asking her first, who had a surprisingly extensive list of romantic comedy rankings, and who would watch a video on tying bowties before she came to meet him, just in case.

Being fascinated by her, as he had been at the beginning, had been one thing--he had experience being fascinated, he knew how to do that. He'd in no way been prepared to _like_ her so much.

"Five stars," he told her, turning to face her again. Of course he wasn't talking about the tie, and of course she didn't need to know that. Her smile expanded until it transformed her entire face, like the last brilliant golden burst of daylight.

"Then if you're _finally_ done primping…" she said, and he laughed again. He swept a hand out in front of him.

"Ladies first."

She gave him one of her signature eye-rolls, and spun on one low heel toward the door. When she turned, he could see that there was a wide net of small straps criss-crossing her back, leaving entirely too much toned muscle and milky, freckled skin visible between. Jaime clenched his hand at his side and focused all his energy on biting back the moan that wanted to pour out of his mouth.

He was _exceptionally_ doomed.

* * * * * * *

Brienne--impossibly tall, intriguingly strong, don't-fuck-with-me Brienne--actually fell a couple of steps behind him just before they entered the Great Hall. When he turned back to find out why, she was staring up at the many-armed chandelier and swallowing hard.

"This is ridiculous," she said to the ceiling. "None of this has anything to do with my skill."

"Oh, it's complete bullshit," Jaime agreed. "But it's the kind of bullshit that will help you win."

She made a face. "I just don't see why any of this is necessary. Why can't we just get on with it?"

He stepped toward her, tucked her hand into his elbow, and spoke through his company smile, in case anyone was watching them. "Brienne. Half the people in that room hate me already, so believe me, they're much too busy sharpening their teeth for me to be worried about you."

"Am I supposed to feel better because they're not interested in me, or because they'll be looking to insult you, or both?" she asked, and he wasn't sure what it said about him that he craved that bite of sarcasm in her tone, but she tossed her head and slid her hand down his arm until it was firmly clasping his, then dropped them both down to their sides. "Fine. Let's go do some bullshit."

"Jaime Lannister." As if summoned by the word, Oberyn Martell appeared in the doorway, stopping so that the gilded arch made the perfect frame for him and Ellaria Sand, who was draped over his arm. "I thought you were done with the likes of us." 

"And here I thought it was the other way around," Jaime replied. In Jaime's previous life, Oberyn had been one of his main competitors, famed for his sumptuous food served in unapologetically hedonistic environments. These days, he was also famed for being the judge who made a surprisingly large percentage of _Game of Chefs_ contestants, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, fall in love with him.

"Ignore their posturing," Ellaria said, holding out an elegant hand to Brienne. "You must be Brienne Tarth. It's such a pleasure to meet you, my dear. I've heard so many fascinating things." 

"I--" Brienne stammered, clearly thrown off-guard by the suggestiveness in Ellaria's tone. But she recovered well, taking Ellaria's hand and telling her, "It's a pleasure to meet you as well. I've heard wonderful things about your restaurants."

"Well, you'll have to come spend an evening with us sometime," Oberyn said, stealing Brienne's hand long enough to kiss it. Something inside Jaime's chest snarled, but Brienne's reaction--more startled than intrigued, or at least Jaime hoped--calmed it somewhat.

"I'm looking forward to cooking for you, Chef," she told him, and it was only because Jaime was holding her other hand that he could feel her pulse, hammering in her wrist; to the eye, she was as smooth as glass. "And now I hope you'll excuse us; it was very warm in the car, and those cocktails look delicious." And she pulled Jaime toward a nearby table.

"Young love," he heard Ellaria say over his shoulder, laughing, and as they approached the table, he tugged a bit on Brienne's hand and took a deep breath.

"There you go," he told her. "The first one's always the hardest." Which promptly, predictably bit him in the ass when a waft of expensive perfume drifted over him and he found himself face to face with Cersei. _Good gods. Is this a party or a frontal assault?_

She looked stunning, of course, in a ruby red dress that hugged her body like a promise. Her golden hair fell in waves to her hips, and before he could stop himself, his own body was remembering what it felt like to have that hair dragging across his naked skin. He shoved the memory down as deep as he could and rearranged his fingers around Brienne's.

"Jaime!" Cersei said, in the fake, too-cheerful voice that he'd always laughed at, back when she'd never used it on him. She leaned in to kiss the air next to his cheek. "It's been far too long."

"Cersei," he answered, giving her a nod and struggling to keep his tone emotionless. "What brings you here tonight?"

"Well," she said, "of course I'm here to support your re-emergence into the culinary world--more or less--and to meet this mysterious new woman you've fallen so deeply in love with. We are practically family, after all." She turned her attention to Brienne. "Brienne, is it? My goodness, you're so very tall, aren't you? And how delightfully unconventional of you, to choose trousers instead of a dress. Very courageous."

"Thank you," Brienne answered stiffly. Then, before Jaime could intervene, she continued, "I believe we have someone else in common, Mrs. Baratheon--your brother-in-law, Renly? I've learned so much, working for him; I wouldn't be here without him."

"Yes, Renly is a soft touch for the less fortunate." Cersei's smile glinted like a dagger. "Jaime, you must come for dinner soon; the children miss you." She said it low and intimately, as if they were alone in a dark corner, and as if she hadn't forbidden him months ago from seeing Tommen and Myrcella, afraid of what rumors would spread and--as she'd taken care to point out--afraid he'd get the stench of failure on them.

Brienne coughed. "Well. I can see that the two of you have some catching up to do. And I think I see Sansa Stark over there; she helped me with this outfit that you were... admiring, Mrs. Baratheon, and I should go thank her for it."

"Oh, of course, I wouldn't want to keep you," Cersei said, a gallon of honey poured over the words. 

Brienne looked at Jaime, one eyebrow raised tentatively. "Come join us when you're ready?" 

"Only if you promise to protect me if the little wolf decides to attack," he said with a wink, trying to put her at ease; he was rewarded when she laughed, the loud, inelegant sound turning the ground a bit more solid under his feet.

"Sorry," she answered, "but without her help I'd have had nothing to wear tonight, so… no promises."

He shook his head. "You're a cruel woman," he told her, and she grinned.

"I hope you enjoy your evening, Mrs. Baratheon," Brienne said, her grin cracking at the edges as she expanded it to include Cersei. She squeezed Jaime's hand before turning away.

"What, no kiss goodbye?" Cersei asked with a tinkling laugh, pitching her voice to attract attention. 

Brienne froze where she stood, then slowly turned back toward him, her eyes slightly widened and blinking fast. The small group of partygoers in their orbit were watching curiously now. Part of Jaime wanted to call Cersei's bluff, to take Brienne in his arms and claim her--let her claim him--in front of this whole ridiculous room, but even on the off-chance that Brienne did want him to kiss her, he was pretty sure that neither one of them wanted it to happen because his ex-girlfriend had dared them to.

"She's going across the room, Cersei, not off to war," he said instead, and the tension snapped like a bowstring. Brienne chuckled in obvious relief and continued toward the flash of smooth red hair in the far corner of the room. The rest of the party resumed around them, disappointed.

Cersei crossed her arms, smug as a hawk who'd just skewered a mouse. "I knew it: you're not fucking her."

"I thought I'd made it clear that it's no longer any of your business who I'm fucking," Jaime shot back. It had taken him long enough to decide that, after years of running to her every time she'd called him crying because the life she'd chosen was too hollow and she needed something real, only to decide a week or a month later that her investment in him wasn't paying off. The worst of it was that every time he saw her, she looked more unhappy, more brittle, pressed into two dimensions by a world that expected women to be polished and glittering and empty. 

He'd loved her for most of his life, and even now, there was a tiny corner of him that dreamed of riding to rescue her from her remote tower. The problem was that she'd set many of the bricks herself, and every time he got close, she riddled him with arrows.

Him and anyone else who had the audacity to stand near him.

"I don't know what you're doing here," he told her, "but leave Brienne out of it. Hate me all you want--the Seven know I probably deserve it--but she's done nothing to you."

"You're not fucking her, but you care about her." Cersei rolled her eyes. "Oh, gods, that's even worse. It's embarrassing. You're so much better than this."

In fact, he had a strong conviction that he was far from good enough for this, but he wasn't about to have that discussion with her. "What do you want, Cersei?"

She stepped closer. "I miss you," she told him, and she didn't touch him but the heat in her voice was like a physical thing, flames licking at the edges of his awareness. "The children are in school all day. Robert is gone all the time, and even when he's here, he won't let me near his office anymore. I'm so _bored_ , Jaime."

Jaime made an incredulous noise. "As if you ever needed permission to go exactly where you wanted, when you wanted."

"But they don't listen to me," she said, and he knew her well enough to hear genuine frustration in it, and to know how few people she would have confessed that to. "No matter how many times I tell them that I know his business as well as he does, all they ever want to hear from me is whose wives and girlfriends are coming to the next reception."

Jaime gritted his teeth, feeling the pull of it despite the many times he'd told himself he was finished with her for good. The most recent time had been nearly six months ago, when she'd called him, drunk, while Robert was away on a business trip, and had whispered filthy promises in his ear until he'd driven to her house in a frenzy and fucked her right there in the front hallway. She'd refused to let him stay the night-- _"What if someone saw you leaving? Fame can turn to infamy in an instant, as you very well know"_ \--and wouldn't answer his calls or texts for weeks afterward, until she'd finally put him off with an "I can't do this right now." 

He'd found out from Tyrion later that before she'd called Jaime, she'd discovered another woman's panties underneath the bed she shared with her husband, even though he'd sworn his philandering days were over. When she'd confronted Robert about it on his return, Tyrion said, he'd promised to make her an executive in his acquisitions department in order to mollify her.

Clearly that hadn't materialized.

Jaime found his gaze drifting in the direction that Brienne had gone. He spotted her standing with Sansa, facing away from him so he could see that crisscross of straps over her skin; her head was thrown back, and though he couldn't actually hear her laugh, the echo of it settled into his chest. 

He looked back at Cersei. "It wasn't so long ago that I was nothing more than a weight to you, dragging you down. You made your choice, Cersei. You've made it dozens of times over. And now I'm making mine."

And before either one of them could say anything else, he walked away.

He could hear her calling after him--insults, he could only assume--but fortunately the crowd noise covered it well enough. More than anything, he wanted to make his way to Brienne, but she'd seemed to be enjoying herself with Sansa, and he didn't want to inflict his suddenly-sour mood on her, so he headed for the next best place: the bar. He was scanning the bottles behind it, trying to figure out what would pair best with narrow escapes from toxic relationships, when a familiar voice broke in,

"Well, you look less like shit than the last time I saw you, at least."

Jaime started in surprise and let his eyes refocus on the bartender. "Bronn." _Thank you for being the first person in this fucking merry-go-round of nightmares that I've actually been happy to see_ , he did not say, because Bronn would never stop giving him shit about it, so he went with, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Working. That's what we common folk do while you pretty boys are having your asses wiped for you," Bronn told him. 

Jaime snorted. "Appetizing as always."

Teeth bared, Bronn shrugged. "Thanks, but you're not my type."

"But seriously," Jaime pressed, "what are you doing here?" Bronn was an exceptional bartender, but he had no interest in participating in the ass-kissing that typically accompanied these types of events. And while Jaime had considered that a virtue and had hired Bronn every chance he got, back when he'd been in charge of such things, he didn't think that the _Game of Chefs_ event-planners would see things quite the same way.

"Your brother insisted," Bronn answered. "I don't know how it was his to insist, but he did."

"Ah, of course. Where is he, anyway?" Jaime angled his head to search the crowd again, eager to see his brother and looking forward to adding one more person to his meager side of this battle.

Bronn raised an eyebrow. "You didn't know? Your father had him removed from the guest list. Which is when Tyrion did his insisting about me, apparently."

Jaime rocked back on his heels a bit, caught between the chill down his spine at the revelation that his father was likely there somewhere, and the rush of warmth that Tyrion had sent Bronn to provide Jaime with another friendly face. Friendly in Bronn's very particular way, anyway. 

"Here," Bronn said, illustrating a key element of that way by sliding him a glass with enough whiskey in it that Jaime briefly wondered if he could just dive in and start swimming laps. "Most of the people here think you're a cunt, so I'm guessing you're going to need this."

"Thank you?" Jaime said, and before he could say more, Catelyn Stark's amplified voice rang through the room.

"Good evening, everyone. I wanted to welcome you all to what we hope will be the beginning of something very special." Almost as soon as she started speaking, conversation died down and everyone turned their attention toward her; Jaime had to admire that kind of command, as well as a woman who clearly didn't feel the need for any sort of introduction. After the applause that greeted her announcement, Catelyn went on, "Contestants, won't you please join me onstage so I can introduce you all?"

Jaime muttered a curse--he'd volunteered to Brienne that he'd be as close as possible for anything involving her being the center of attention, and here he was, drink in hand and nowhere near her--tossed a tip on the bar for Bronn and began shoving his way through the crowd, leaving whispers and huffs in his wake. He made it near the stage just as Brienne was reaching the top of the stairs. When her darting eyes settled on him, he could see the hint of a smile curve the edges of her lips and a bit of the tension drain from the careful way she was holding herself, and no matter what awards and accolades he'd received in his former life, he wasn't sure he'd ever been prouder.

He was ridiculously proud of her, too, of course; looking at her standing on that stage, strong and solid and more devastatingly skilled than anyone knew yet, he thought his chest might burst. Catelyn described her simply as "Brienne Tarth from Sapphire Island, right-hand woman to Renly Baratheon and a tremendously promising talent." Brienne turned bright red under the lights and smiled shyly at the polite applause, but Jaime could feel a hunter's edge to his own grin, imagining her taking all of them by storm.

He tore his eyes away from her just long enough to skim over her competition as Catelyn introduced them. The last time Jaime had seen Daenerys Targaryen, she'd just been starting culinary school, eager and bright-eyed; now she looked poised and confident, surveying the crowd like a gracious queen. The man who stood next to her was introduced as Tormund "Giantsbane" Wildling, a former pro wrestler who had turned to cooking when a nagging shoulder injury had forced him into retirement. Gendry Waters, with his annoyingly youthful face and even more annoying muscles, was an up-and-coming grillmaster whose name Jaime had heard around the city a few times. The last contestant was Hyle Hunt, who had the same bland looks of the models in the stock photos in picture frames; Jaime hated him instantly, not least because Hunt winked at Daenerys while utterly ignoring Brienne. 

Then again, Tormund was staring at Brienne with unabashed admiration, and that made Jaime hate him, too. Martell was including her in his general sex vibes, in addition to being his normal luxuriously handsome self, so: hate. The third judge, Tysha Silverfist, wasn't doing anything particularly offensive, but she was in a position to break Brienne's heart by eliminating her from the competition, so Jaime found he hated her a bit, too. 

Maybe he'd lost just the slightest bit of objectivity in this case.

After the introductions, Catelyn invited them all to return to the party, but both judges and contestants stayed on the stage to schmooze with each other. Except Brienne, who shook everyone's hand and made clear eye contact--and Jaime had intimate knowledge of just how effective that could be, even if he was fairly sure that Brienne had no idea--and escaped as quickly as possible.

When she made a beeline for Jaime's side, something warm and terrifying expanded inside his chest; even though he'd been invited here essentially as her security blanket, he was still having trouble making himself believe that out of this whole room, she'd want to stand next to him. 

"See? That wasn't so bad, right?" he asked when she came within earshot, this time unable to keep his foolish smile from taking over his face. He handed over his still-half-full glass, and she took a healthy gulp, then made maybe the most endearing whiskey face that Jaime had ever seen.

"Everyone was very nice, but also, I'm pretty convinced at this point there are actually eight hells, and this is the extra one," she answered as she handed back the glass.

"I'll drink to that," Jaime agreed. He saluted her with it before taking a sip of his own.

"Did you get to catch up with your… with Mrs. Baratheon?" Brienne asked him then, too casually, fingers twisting in the fabric at her thigh.

"We didn't talk long," he said, holding her gaze with his. "We rarely do these days, to be honest."

She smiled before she could duck her chin enough to hide it, then looked back up at him and inhaled to say something else. He saw her eyes widen, and before he had time to ask her what was wrong, a hand clapped down on his shoulder.

"Jaime," said his father. "I've been looking for you all evening. Fashionably late, were you?" He somehow managed to make both of those states sound shameful.

Jaime could almost hear his own all-too-brief good mood disappearing like water sucked down a drain. This was, truly, the worst party of all time. "Father. What a surprise."

"Well, it's so rare that you emerge from your cave these days, I couldn't miss it."

While Jaime was still marshaling a response to that--he'd made an appearance at a Lannister Corp event a week ago, for fuck's sake--Brienne threw herself into the breach.

"Mr. Lannister," she said, extending a hand. "I'm Brienne Tarth."

Tywin took her hand, and Jaime knew him well enough to know that the infinitesimal shift of his eyebrows meant that he liked Brienne's grip, and that he hadn't expected to. "Miss Tarth. What an opportunity this must be for you."

"Oh, yes, absolutely," Brienne answered, the words almost tumbling over each other as she spread a thick layer of forced enthusiasm over the tension. "And Jaime has helped me so much along the way; I'm truly grateful."

"Yes," Tywin said slowly, and fixed Jaime with a look that Jaime couldn't quite identify, but that he knew meant danger. "Jaime's… helpfulness is actually what I wanted to speak to him about. In fact, I'm hoping he can spare some of it for his sister."

Jaime gritted his teeth. He hated it when Tywin referred to Cersei that way, and not just because it made Jaime's attachment to her seem inappropriate somehow; mostly he hated it because Tywin only did it when he was trying to manipulate them both, playing on Jaime's loyalty and Cersei's hunger to carve out a space where she could feel secure. He hated most of all how often it had worked. 

"Cersei doesn't need my help, Father. She has Robert to provide everything she needs." Which they both knew wasn't true, but Jaime was betting his father wouldn't break character to acknowledge it in front of Brienne. The airing of dirty family laundry in public was the ultimate sin in the book of Tywin Lannister.

"Robert would like to invest in young Renly and help him open a restaurant where his skills can truly shine," Tywin answered. "And what with your newfound… reputation, we thought that a partnership with you would be an excellent way to help the project garner some publicity, to our mutual benefit."

Jaime blinked for a moment, stunned. After all the times his father had told him what an embarrassment his past was to the family, now that it might be useful in giving an intriguing hint of scandal and possible redemption to Renly's latest venture, it was suddenly an asset? And this little proposition explained Cersei's abrupt change of heart earlier, too; she and Tywin must have plotted this together, and she'd been hoping she could seduce Jaime into doing what she wanted. Again. And now he understood why his father had insisted that Tyrion be kept off the guest list--Jaime didn't have much of a herd, but Tywin had no doubt meant to separate him from what little he had before he went in for the kill.

"I'm very busy right now, Father," he tried, because he didn't want Brienne caught in the middle of any more awkwardness than necessary, and Tywin snorted.

"Busy standing on the sidelines of the _Game of Chefs_?" he asked, disdain dripping from every word. "Please. I'm speaking of a real opportunity for you."

When Tywin had been trying to cut Jaime's supports from underneath him, though, he obviously hadn't factored in Brienne. "Jaime actually has an excellent opportunity with me," she said, sliding her hand into his again, her chin taking on that stubborn tilt that, in much less excruciating moments, Jaime loved to provoke. Of course, he had no idea what she was talking about, but at the moment, that seemed less important than the fact that she was talking at all.

"Oh, does he? Tywin asked, with some gilded combination of boredom and sarcasm. "Do enlighten me."

"If I win the competition-- _when_ I win--I'm going to use the money to open a community kitchen. But I want it to be an experimental space, too, where we can innovate and try new things, and while I'm good, I'd be better with a very gifted partner. And," she went on, a little more quietly now, focusing on Jaime so that all he could see was the stormy blue of her eyes, "I thought we might work on how people with limited mobility and other disabilities could still participate fully in the experience."

Jaime couldn't speak for a moment, while the visions he'd first had of Brienne's kitchen swam back into his mind, only with him in the middle of things, too, this time: laughing with Brienne as he prepped her station for her, showing a young chef--Podrick, maybe--his latest experiment, the space filled to bursting with fragrant steam and creativity and affection. He wanted it so badly that it tangled his tongue, but it didn't matter, because Brienne was charging onward.

"So you see, Mr. Lannister, if Jaime takes the position I'm going to offer him when I win--and I sincerely hope he does, because it would be an honor to work with him, and I can't imagine anyone better suited to the role--it won't just be good for the reputation of Lannister Corp, though it will be that. It will be good for the entirety of King's Landing… and isn't that what you're always saying that Lannister Corp is all about?" She finished her little speech triumphant, as if she'd lunged forward and lodged a blade in his father's chest, and oh, _fuck_. 

Jaime loved her. 

He had no idea what in any of the seven or eight hells he was going to do about that.

Tywin tilted his head, considering, before letting a lazy smile spread across his features. "Well, Chef Tarth. May the best of us win, I suppose." And without another word, he made a military-sharp turn and walked off into the crowd.

Jaime just stared after him, until Brienne's increasingly tight grip on his hand drew his attention.

"Jaime?" she said, looking after Tywin, too, her voice stretched tight and teetering on the edge of control. "Let's get the fuck out of this place."

" _Hell_ yes," he agreed, and clutched her hand back just as hard.

* * * * * * *

The hardwood of Brienne's kitchen floor was cool and familiar under her bare feet as she pulled two mugs out of the cupboard. Jaime had asked if she could spare him half an hour or so, and since she was headed off to quarantine for the show the next day--contestants were only allowed minimal contact with the outside world for the duration of filming, to keep spoilers at bay--she was only too glad that he wanted to stay with her a bit longer.

So he'd asked his driver to take them back to her apartment and now here she was, adding generous glugs of whiskey to decaf coffee while he plated slices of the cherry pie they'd made together a couple of nights before, the latest foray in his ongoing mission to conquer pie crust. By this point she was used to having him in her kitchen, but she wasn't used to his dangling bowtie, the unbuttoned gap at the collar of his crisp white shirt, the way his rolled-up sleeves hugged his forearms, or the sensual slip of her own jumpsuit against her skin. Part of her had wanted to excuse herself to change as soon as she'd gotten home, to pull on a sweatshirt and pajama bottoms and feel like herself again; a secret, greedier part of her wanted to stay at the ball until the last stroke of midnight, stay the Brienne who'd made Jaime lose his power of speech when he'd first seen her in the doorway of his bedroom.

She'd let that part win, for now.

Decaf or no, she found her leg jittering when they sat down on her couch, her energy level bouncing back and forth between the twin monsters of the draining adrenaline from the evening and all-new adrenaline for what was coming in the next several days. 

"Nervous about tomorrow?" Jaime asked her as he lifted a forkful of pie to his mouth.

"No," she scoffed, though she knew she didn't have a chance at fooling him. Sure enough, he smiled at her, and she was surprised that it was mostly warmth with only a crisp outer shell of teasing, just to add texture. 

"The night before the opening of my first restaurant, I was so sick with nerves that I could hardly stand to think about food," he said, shaking his head. 

"You?" she asked incredulously. "The chosen one? The Golden Lion?" She still had crystal-clear memories of the breathless coverage in advance of that opening, the magazine spreads that had highlighted his impeccable pedigree as much as they did his golden hair and bottle-green eyes. The too-smooth surface of his supposed perfection had annoyed her, but the way he'd spoken about food, the fierce passion and potential of it, had drawn her in despite herself.

"As you could probably glean from our little chat earlier, my father doesn't suffer anything less than the best from our family," he said, and there was that dark chocolate bitterness again. "If I hadn't performed perfectly, I would have been… well." He gave a short laugh. "Using my tarnished reputation as a lever for others' pursuits, I guess."

Without thinking, Brienne reached forward and set her hand on his thigh, just above his knee. She didn't mean anything more by it than sympathy--she hated his father already and she'd only met him once--but the way his muscles went rigid under her hand and heat surged into his eyes made her stomach drop and her pulse jump. Then he blinked and looked away, and she took her hand back.

She'd told herself initially that spending more time with him would highlight his flaws and sandpaper that gloss of money and talent and charm, bring him down to the mortal realm. And it had; the only problem was that every rough edge she scraped up against just made her like him better, and the moments when that friction threatened to ignite into something she couldn't control were becoming more and more frequent. 

"In any case," he was saying, "tonight is supposed to be about you." While she was still struggling to make her lungs work properly, he reached around the side of the couch and retrieved the canvas bag he'd brought in with him. As soon as he'd pulled it out of the trunk of the car, curiosity had started gnawing at her, but then they'd gotten upstairs to her place and he'd slipped his bowtie loose and she'd sort of lost track if it in the ensuing wave of lust.

Well. She guessed she was about to find out more about it now.

"I'm sorry about the subpar presentation," he said, "but wrapping paper was never my strong suit even with two hands, and I didn't want anyone else to do it for me."

Brienne knew she was bright red and the smile on her face was much too wide and silly, but he never seemed to mind that, so she took the bag carefully and set it in her lap. On top was a roll of thick, stiff cloth with a leather strap around it, and when she took it out, the weight of it had her glancing up at him in disbelief.

He was watching her with a kind of banked excitement in his eyes, like a candle behind a shade. "Good gods, woman, open it, will you?" he burst out after a few seconds, laughing.

She laughed, too, something embarrassingly close to a giggle, and loosened the strap with suddenly shaking fingers, and… 

_By every single individual one of the Seven._

It was a new set of knives, but the exact manufacturer and series of her battered old ones, as if he'd somehow popped them into a time machine and they'd come out the other side as gleaming and sharp as the day they were born. When she slid the chef's knife out of its slot, the handle curved into her palm like the touch of a beloved friend.

"Jaime," she said, wide-eyed. "They're… this is…" She turned the knife over in her hands, struggling for words. As much as his rough edges scattered sparks through her, this kind of thing, this gooey marshmallow center thing, was going to be her undoing.

"I know you and your old set have been through a lot," he said, "but a chef of your caliber deserves tools of the same caliber." He tilted forward, obviously trying to read her reaction, and her whole body wanted to fling itself at him in response. Her brain was still calling the shots, though--barely--so she channeled every ounce of feeling she had into the smile she gave him.

"They're incredible," she told him, and watched the light in his face leap from a candle into a full bonfire. "Thank you so much."

"There's something else in there," he said, full of the joy of his gift, scooting a couple of inches closer to her.

 _Oh, gods_. She wasn't sure how much more she could take. With a deep breath, she reached into the bag again, and drew out a bundle of sturdy, deep sapphire blue cotton. Even folded, she knew immediately what it was: a chef's coat, by far the nicest she'd ever had, with the words _Chef Tarth_ embroidered in gold thread on the breast.

"I checked, and every chef on the show gets to choose their own uniform," Jaime was saying eagerly. "I figured you'd probably just go with white, and you'll stand out because of your skill, of course, but I figured it couldn't hurt to stand out like this, as well. I mean, if you want to. And besides, blue looks good on you."

He was babbling a little now, and she wanted to rescue him, but all she could do at the moment was blink hard and rapidly, her nose stinging and eyes watering. As she smoothed a hand over the cloth, trying to find her composure, she caught a flash of gold underneath, tucked inside. She turned open the front flap of the coat and there, on the flip side from her title, carefully embroidered so that no hint of it would be obvious from the outside, was the word _commis_.

She threw back her head and burst into watery laughter, and when she tilted her neck back down and saw his gleeful, unrepentant grin, she shoved his shoulder. "You're a monster," she told him. "An absolute, unmitigated monster. I can't imagine why I put up with you."

"Neither can I," he said, and he was laughing, too, but there was a bit too much sincerity in the words for her liking. Before she could pursue that, he gestured impatiently at her. "Well? Are you going to try it on?"

With a put-upon sigh that was purely for Jaime's benefit, she unfolded herself from the couch, and he stood up too, which… didn't seem necessary, exactly, and started up a slight thrum in her pulse again; she tossed her head and ignored it. She slid her arms into the sleeves, refusing to think about how ridiculous she must look wearing a chef's coat over a formal jumpsuit. Even before she touched the buttons, she could tell that it was going to fit perfectly, giving her enough room to maneuver without hanging on her like a tent. And as long as she was refusing to think about things, she wasn't going to think about how he'd been able to be so accurate with the measurements, either. 

She wrapped it close to fasten it. It was cotton, soft but strong, and it smelled, faintly, of Jaime; he must have had it nearby him for a while at some point. She figured that scent was going to last about five minutes once she got it into a kitchen, but she liked the idea anyway, the coat snug around her as she ran this gauntlet, with some small part of him hidden deep inside the fabric. 

He was watching her fingers travel up the line of buttons, his lips parted slightly, eyes tracking her slightest movement and then focusing on her face again with something she would have called wonder, if that were an emotion that she thought she was capable of provoking. It was the same way he'd looked at her earlier that night, when she'd been standing onstage, overwhelmed and drifting until she'd found the lighthouse beam of his rapt attention. Her heart started to thump, as if it was reaching out to press against the secret name that lay over it.

The sparks were building inside her now, little fireworks lighting her up one bundle of nerves at a time, and for once, she opened her mouth and let them out. "I always have trouble with the top buttons," she said, with a laugh that came out much more nervous than she wanted it to. "Hard to see."

She wasn't even trying to look at the buttons, just him, the movement of his throat as he swallowed.

"Here," he said hoarsely, and stepped toward her. A second later, he was touching her, and despite the thick cotton, the careful pressure of his fingers felt like a brand; when they brushed against her neck in passing, she had to clamp her mouth shut over a squeak. It took him longer than it should have to get the buttons fastened, even with his damaged hand, and she would have wondered if he was drawing it out on purpose, except for the flush that lit his sharp cheekbones and the embarrassed tint of his laugh.

"Apparently I'm having trouble too."

As moves went, it probably wasn't one Margaery would have approved of--having someone button her up, instead of the more typical and ultimately time-saving unbuttoning--but it had brought him closer to her, and he was going to step away any second, and her whole life could change starting tomorrow, so before she could overthink it, she leaned in and pressed her mouth to his.

Almost instantly, he groaned against her lips, the sound ragged with relief and desperation, and then his arms banded around her and pulled her hard against his body. Which was helpful, partially because, well, his body was an excellent thing to be against, but also because Brienne didn't realize quite how much she'd been fearing rejection until her knees went weak at the lack of it.

"Brienne," he murmured into her mouth, "oh, _gods_ , Brienne, I've--" before the words were lost between both their tongues. Brienne dug her fingers into the corded muscles of his shoulders, determined to give as good as she got. Of course she'd known how much she wanted him, all the dozens of fantasies that had chased her down into sleep with increasing frequency over the past month, but she wasn't quite prepared to have it returned so thoroughly in kind, him straining up on his toes to get closer. 

He tasted like cherry pie and good coffee, sweet and tart and deep and rich all at the same time. She could feel him struggling to undo the buttons he'd just fastened, though he only got far enough to slide one hand inside and rest it against the naked skin over her collarbone; she instinctively angled her hips forward against his and felt his mouth go slack and his whole body shudder. 

It was as if she'd stepped outside into the thrill and elemental fury of a thunderstorm, and even though every touch-starved inch of her was begging to just sink into it, she made herself pull back before she completely lost the capability. He let her, though she could feel the tension in all the lines of his body where it pressed against hers, like a lion roaring from behind a steel door. His breath puffed against her wet mouth.

"Jaime--" she said, and he stepped back immediately, hands held out away from his sides.

"I know." Something that looked like pain shadowed his face. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have--"

It was so sweet and ridiculous and unnecessary that she couldn't help a small, incredulous laugh. She reached out and caught his injured hand in hers. "Jaime. I kissed you first, remember? You don't have anything to apologize for."

"Oh." Surprise flitted across his expression, slowly blurring into satisfaction. "You did, didn't you? You kissed me first."

There was a distinct vein of smugness that should have been annoying, but it was mostly delight in his tone, and enough of that pleased surprise that her heart twisted a bit, wondering what in his past would make him so happy to be the one who had been pursued, even for that brief breath of time.

Still, "Don't let this go to your head," she told him, just to see his mouth curl into that semi-feral grin that she liked more than she wanted to admit.

"Too late." 

And if she'd liked that grin before, she'd had no idea how much she'd like it when she could still feel the echo of his heat all along her skin.

She took a deep breath. "So," she started, because if she didn't use her mouth for words, she was going to be using it for something else again in about half a second. "This is… a development."

"A welcome one, I hope?" he said, and he was still grinning, but there was that slight flicker of uncertainty to it.

"Very," she said firmly, wrapping her fingers more tightly around his. His answering smile was so bright and unguarded that she could feel her heart melting like taffy in the hot sun, filling every corner of her chest with sweet warmth.

"But," he said, still smiling, "you've got ass to kick, and this isn't the time for distractions."

She tilted her head a bit, surprised. She'd been expecting to have to tap-dance around it, to balance his ego with her needs like she automatically did with so many of the men she worked with.

He clicked his tongue against his teeth. "Brienne, this is something you've been preparing for since long before you met me, and you're going to need all your focus in order to perform your best. This…" He waved his free hand. "Whatever this is, we'll figure it out after you win."

It occurred to her that it could be a line, the kind of _let's not define it_ bullshit she'd seen her friends on the wrong end of any number of times, but he was still looking at her with that smile, her own personal signal fire, and she wanted to believe him so much that it was terrifying.

"The thing is," he went on, "as you just illustrated by jumping me when I was innocently helping you with a wardrobe issue, I'm _very_ distracting."

She snorted a laugh. "You're very annoying." It was a relief to be easing back onto more familiar ground, even if her pulse was still racing with possibility. _Later_ , she told herself. _Win now, and later you can figure out whether you can actually date the ridiculously handsome, disgustingly talented, shockingly kind man you've been pretending to date._

"The proof is in the jumping, _commis_ ," he told her, and only laughed when she gave him her best eye-roll.

Then he took her other hand and looked at her head-on. "You'll be brilliant, there's no doubt in my mind. They have no idea what's coming."

Her nose started to burn again, signaling the threat of tears. "I'm not allowed to leave the hotel except for filming," she said, although they'd already talked about it--complained about it, in her case--more than once. "No cell phones, no internet."

"I know," he said softly. The sweep of his eyes over her face was like a caress, like he was memorizing every tiny detail, even though she'd presumably see him again in a few weeks. She'd never thought she'd be anything but uncomfortable with that kind of scrutiny, but she felt herself glowing under it, like each shift of his gaze was a brush stroke that brought her more vividly into color.

"We do get land-lines, though," she said. "Can I call y--"

"Yes," rushed out of him, before she could even finish the sentence. "Yes. Call. Anytime." Then he ducked his head and chuckled, sheepish. "Did I say that too quickly?"

It was too much to resist; she leaned forward and gave him one last, lingering kiss, just a simple press of their mouths together so she wouldn't be tempted to forget caution and distract his brains out.

This time, he pulled back first. "All right," he said, his voice unsteady despite her frankly heroic efforts at self-control. "If I don't leave now, I'm not going to." He heaved a deep breath of his own, then reached out to smooth the collar of her beautiful new coat. "Good luck, Brienne. You deserve this."

"I'll call you," she said, because what she really wanted to say would have been the most distracting thing of all.

"I'll be there," he answered simply, and the words kept echoing in her head long after he'd left.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But it turned out that she wanted to hear his voice more than she was afraid of what he would say, so she flailed one arm out from her prone position, dragged the phone next to her, and dialed his number._
> 
> _He picked up after two rings. "Chef Tarth."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year to all of you! To paraphrase the excellent Mariame Kaba, may 2020 bring us more justice and some peace.

Brienne collapsed backward on her hotel bed and strongly considered never moving again. Ever. For any reason.

No matter how exhausted her body was, though, her brain was still racing, going over every twist and turn of the day, checking every angle for possible future strategies. She'd survived the first elimination, but barely; the next time she might not be so lucky, so she had to be ready. Unfortunately, another part of being ready was getting a good night's rest, and given the obsession kaleidoscope that was currently whirling through her mind, she was starting to worry that that was going to be impossible. Which just added that much more to the stress.

Thoughts of Jaime intruded, as they had several times throughout the day; every time she'd looked down and been surprised at the blue of her coat instead of the customary white, she'd thought of his faith in her, his conviction that she deserved this. And as she'd moved frantically from task to task at her station, she'd kept hearing his voice in her mind, urging her to refine her presentation, to let loose and trust her instincts on her spices, to take risks as long as they were calculated.

Not only that, but all their good intentions in not distracting her before the competition had been hilariously optimistic, since now that she was alone, in a bed, other memories kept washing over her, too: his fingertips against her bare skin, the scorching heat of his mouth, the hungry way he'd clutched her close. It still felt surreal, like the nightmare of the gala had somehow morphed into a dream of flying, and she was almost afraid to talk to him again in case he woke her up, told her that it hadn't really happened after all and they were still just friends with publicity benefits.

But it turned out that she wanted to hear his voice more than she was afraid of what he would say, so she flailed one arm out from her prone position, dragged the phone next to her, and dialed his number.

He picked up after two rings. "Chef Tarth."

Just those simple words, rolling down the line and settling into her ear, were like an anchor in the middle of her little mental maelstrom. "How did you know it was me?"

"You told me what hotel you were staying in. I looked up the number so I'd know it when I saw it."

She grinned. "Creepy."

"Creepy would have been looking up your room number." She could hear his smile.

"Where are you?" she asked, wanting to picture him more clearly.

"In the living room," he told her. And oh, yes, she could see him there, stretched out along his leather couch; she'd teased him about the bachelor pad cliché of it, but the truth was that it was buttery soft, and the blue-black color of it made a lovely frame for his hair when he tipped his head back against it. "I'll tell you what I'm wearing, too, if you'd like," and her whole body flushed at the lazy, amused suggestiveness in his tone, "but the suspense is killing me: how did it go? Since you're not swearing and I don't hear you stress-cooking, I'm going to assume the show will go on."

"Yes," she said, comforted by his knowledge of her and happy to be able to deliver good news, since he'd gone to the trouble of signing a non-disclosure agreement and all. "This was the hardest fucking day of my life, though. TV is _ridiculous_. Serving a full meal in forty-five minutes is bad enough, but doing it with cameras in your face the whole time is just fucking unreasonable. Not to mention all the talking-head stuff they make you do afterward while you pretend that it all somehow happened at the same time, like you stopped in the middle of a mad dash to the pantry to meditate on your destiny." 

He laughed. "And yet you presumably made it through without stabbing so much as a single person in the hand with a fork. You're a better person than I am, Chef. So which of your foes was vanquished today?"

"Hyle Hunt," Brienne said with a sneer. Speaking of people whose hands cried out for stabbing.

"Oh good," Jaime answered enthusiastically. "I hated him."

"I liked him just fine until he tried to sabotage me," Brienne said, her own hands curling into fists at the thought. 

"He _what_?!"

"Yep," Brienne answered. "He tried to flirt with me--to throw me off my game, I guess--and then he 'accidentally' turned the heat up on my burner when he walked by. Fortunately I noticed before anything burned beyond saving."

There was silence on the other end. 

"... Jaime?" Brienne said after a few seconds. "Are you there?" Maybe he was pitying her for even entertaining the idea that Hyle Hunt would be interested in her. Maybe he was mad at her for attracting Hunt's attention, even though she hadn't asked for it. Maybe--

"Just considering how I'm going to destroy him," Jaime said, a thin cover of pleasantry over a white-hot blade of fury. Brienne knew she shouldn't find that attractive, but given that she'd had a few murderous fantasies of her own after she'd realized what had happened, she could hardly fault him for it. 

"Would you prefer him kneeling in front of you while he begs your forgiveness, or prostrate at your feet?" Jaime continued.

Brienne laughed, her fingers loosening until her knuckles were resting easily on the bed again. "Kicking his ass was the best revenge," she said. "Plus, there was a camera he didn't see that had a perfect angle on his little trick, so. Anyone who watches the episode will be able to see who he really is."

 _"Good,"_ he said with vicious emphasis. "Now, tell me everything about how you left them in the dust."

She laughed again, feeling her face go warm. "Well. Daenerys actually placed first today--she's very good, I'm going to have to watch out for her. But the challenge was home cooking, so I made herbed brown butter scallops over a corn succotash salad, with a tomato bisque on the side." She and Jaime had decided on a strategy of simplicity and flawless execution, for at least the first two of the four rounds. No mousses, no foams, just fresh ingredients and bold flavors.

He hummed into the phone, and though technically the vibration of it was in her ear, she felt it between her legs nonetheless. "That's going to taste so fantastic when you make it in my kitchen in a few weeks."

 _We'll be broken up in a few weeks and probably never see each other again_ was the iceberg thought that bobbed up from the corner of her brain that was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, but she squashed it down ruthlessly; that was Future Brienne's problem. Present Brienne had more than enough to deal with. "Well then it will be a good chance at redemption, because Chef Stark didn't think I got the sear quite right," she said. "I didn't have enough time to dry the scallops properly, so the crust wasn't what it could have been."

"Timed competitions are an insult to the culinary arts," he said in the patrician tone that either irritated or amused her, depending on the context. At the moment, she fully agreed with him, though they'd had a few _Game of Chefs_ trial runs in his enormous, dreamy kitchen that had left her sweaty and exhilarated, but. That probably wasn't entirely due to the structure of the competition.

"Well," she said. "They're not going to give me twenty-five thousand dragons for making sandwiches in my apartment." 

"You do make an excellent sandwich," he told her. "Though I keep telling you that--"

His words faded out as the full weight of what she'd just said-- _twenty-five thousand dragons_ \--soaked into her thoughts like lead and sank from there into her stomach. She'd made it through despite some mistakes today, but there was so much that could go wrong here, and only one path where she got what she needed. And it wasn't just her hopes on the line, it was Pod's and Margaery's too, and Jaime's, even, if he accepted the job she'd promised to offer him (because her anxious brain was fully capable of worrying both that she'd never see him again after all this _and_ that she'd ruin his hope for redemption by being unable to help him find meaningful work). And beyond that were the hopes of aspiring chefs and friends and families in King's Landing, strangers who didn't even know her idea existed yet, but who would be the poorer for it if she failed.

She took a breath against the rising tide of panic. Jaime, oblivious, seemed to be in the middle of a diatribe about the inferiority of Myrish mustard.

"Jaime?" she interrupted him.

"What is it?" he answered; his tone suggested that he'd heard something off in her voice in spite of her attempt to sound calm.

She took another breath and spoke almost without thinking. "Distract me. Please."

There was a long pause, and then rustling on the other end, like he'd shifted position. "And how, exactly, would you like me to do that?" His voice was deep and rough, the way she imagined his stubble would feel scraping against her skin. He'd been clean-shaven for the gala, but she bet he wasn't now, sitting in his penthouse waiting for her to call. She pressed her free hand to her hot cheek. 

Her immediate instinct was to laugh it off, change the subject, like she usually did when he made suggestive comments that he clearly didn't--couldn't--mean. Except he could, maybe, given that she could still vividly remember the hard heat of him against her, and now that the path stretched out in front of her, she could feel a sort of reckless curiosity starting to curl in the pit of her stomach, the juncture of her thighs, her anxiety seeping into a different kind of thrill. 

Maybe this was exactly what she needed right now.

"I know you've got a functioning brain behind that pretty face, surely you can come up with something," she said, trying it on for size. Challenging him; she was used to doing that, and this was just another flavor of it. And besides, it wasn't too late for either of them to steer back toward safety, if they wanted to.

"What if I want to hear you say it?" he asked, but it wasn't a demand, it sounded like _craving_ , and she shivered. And gave in.

"All right," she answered, swallowing hard. "I want you to tell me what you'd do, if you were here. What _we_ would do."

"Ohhhh." The word was slightly drawn-out on the hint of a groan, and her heart was starting to pound for an entirely different reason now. "Well. Let's start with this: are you wearing something with buttons on it, Brienne? Ever since I saw you that first night, all wrapped up in your pretty white coat, something in me has been itching to get my hands on those buttons. The other night was a good start, but what can I say, I'm a greedy man."

Brienne looked down at herself. She was, in fact, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants that were nearly old enough to be starting middle school. However, despite her lack of experience with phone sex, she was fairly confident that accuracy was beside the point. 

"I do have buttons on my shirt," she told him. "Would you want to help me with them, if you were here?"

"Yes," he breathed, "please," and the eagerness in his voice made her feel strong. Powerful. And secure in the awareness that not only was he not intimidated by that strength and power, he _liked_ it.

"I'd undo most of them, and you could watch," she said, cheeks flaming, closing her eyes to boost her courage and to enhance the floating feeling of it all, the idea that this was just a dream and she could do and be whatever she wanted. "But I'd let you help with the last few." She swallowed again--silently, she hoped--then went on, her voice only faltering a little, "I like your hands on me."

He sucked in a breath. "Mmm. I like it too." More rustling, and heat pulsed between her legs as she wondered what he was doing. What his hands were on, since they couldn't be on her. " _Gods_ , Brienne."

"I like the way you say my name, too." As she grew bolder, her own hand started to creep across her chest, over her shirt, fingers circling one stiff nipple and then the other. "The way the 'r' comes out all rich and deep, the way your tongue moves on the 'n'. Makes me think about what else you can do with your mouth." She pressed her thighs together to ease the ache.

"Oh, is _that_ why you're always trying to get me to call you by your name?" he asked, laughing a little.

"No," she said firmly, which made him laugh again. "It doesn't hurt, though," she admitted, grinning too, despite herself.

"Brienne," he said, and the naked longing in it was enough to make her shove her shirt out of the way so she could get to bare skin. "Brienne, Brienne, Brienne." The last one broke off on a gasp.

She moaned, pinching her nipple, hips arching up off the bed into empty air. She cursed the need to keep one hand free for the phone, though the frustration of it added to the delicious tension somehow, like a bright squeeze of lemon over something decadently rich.

"You said you'd thought about unbuttoning me; what else have you thought about?" she asked, half-afraid that he wouldn't have an answer but needing to know, hoping that she hadn't been the only one who'd long since blurred the line between real and fake relationship. At the least, she figured he'd probably had a stray fantasy or two, after all the time they'd spent together. Maybe the night of the gala, when she'd been all glammed up.

"Do you really want to know?" His breath sounded like it was coming faster now, and she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter and answered,

"Yes."

"Fuck, Brienne, what haven't I thought about?" There was an agonized edge to his laugh. "I mean, of course I've thought about bending you over your kitchen island any number of times, that one is obvious. And when you fell asleep on my couch, I wanted to wake you up with my tongue between your legs. I want my tongue on every inch of your legs, actually--every mile of them. Last week you wore that old, soft purple sweater when I came over and I could see your nipples under it and I nearly had to gnaw off my left hand to keep from touching you. I get hard every time those eyes of yours spark when you're yelling at me about how it's your kitchen and you'll do what you want in it. I--"

"Jaime," she gasped out, because even though she'd started this, she'd never in a million years suspected that it would be so _much_ , and she was drowning, struggling to orient herself in this new reality, struggling to breathe.

"What?" His voice was still rough, but a little harsher now. "You asked. Do you want me to stop?"

"No," she said fervently, anxious to reassure him and oddly touched that he needed reassurance, beautiful golden lion that he was. "No, I just… I need…" Her hand dipped down along her stomach, sliding under the waistband of her sweats, and it was almost like touching a stranger, after having seen herself through his eyes. Her back bowed up, and instead of being conscious of how small her breasts were, she thought of him greedily watching her nipples. The muscles of her stomach clenched and she thought of how her strength made him hard. Her fingers slipped down between her legs--miles of legs, he'd said--and she moaned, thinking of his tongue there instead.

"Chef Tarth," he said, pretending to be scandalized, and _oh_ , that was good too, even though it might be incredibly inconvenient when she was trying to focus in the future; she would probably have to change her name but it would be worth it. "Are you touching yourself right now?"

"You know I am." Her fingers were rubbing over her clit now; she was too impatient for teasing, not with his words ringing in her head, reverberating throughout her body. "What you might not know," she went on, on fire with his responses and wanting him to feel as good as she did, "is how wet I am, thinking about you. Thinking about all the things I've wanted to do to you."

 _"Fuck,"_ he hissed. "I want you to tell me every single one of them, in vivid detail." He paused, then went on, his voice strained, "But I have to admit, right now, I'm not sure there's time for that."

She laughed low, smug satisfaction spreading through her, her fingers moving faster to keep pace with him. "Are you going to come for me, Jaime? Is that what you're trying to say?"

"Wouldn't be the first time," he gritted out, "although it's much, _much_ better having your voice in my ear when I do."

"I wish you were here," she told him, suddenly, feverishly. "I want you here, Jaime, I want you, I want you--"

He gave a choked-off cry, and the sound of it, the image of him--his silky hair spread out over the back of his couch, legs splayed, mouth open and slender hand working his cock as he came, thinking of her--was enough to pull her over the edge, too, a sweet, bright blur that obliterated everything but him.

When awareness trickled back in, she realized the phone was lying on the bed next to her, and with a shuddering laugh, she dragged it back to her ear with her clean hand.

"Sorry. Dropped the phone."

"Brienne," he said, and he sounded just as breathless as she felt, "please believe me when I tell you that every single thing that just happened is inexpressibly fine with me."

She laughed again. "Fine?" she asked teasingly, feeling buoyant and drained in the best possible way. "That's all I get, after all that? 'Fine'?"

"Oh, don't make me prop up your ego, _commis_ , it diverts our energy from propping up mine," he drawled back.

While she was still snickering about that, a thought popped into her head. "Speaking of egos: Chef Martell complimented me on my coat, when I showed up for shooting today." 

"I'll bet he did," Jaime growled.

She giggled, actually _giggled_ , which was… not a thing she was accustomed to letting most people hear. "Jaime. It was perfectly professional." 

"Hmmmmm," was all Jaime said, with what Brienne was sure was the maximum amount of skepticism that could possibly be stuffed into two letters. "Did you tell him where you got it?"

"No," she answered. 

"Why not?" he asked, and now he wasn't entirely joking anymore; there was real hurt underneath. "Ashamed to be associated with me?"

"Of course not," she said quickly, horrified that he'd even consider that. "I wanted…." She hesitated, trying to figure out how best to phrase it. "That isn't for him, or for the cameras. It's for…." She couldn't quite bring herself to say it, to believe it, despite everything that had passed between them in the past few days.

"Us?" he offered quietly, questioning, and she held on to the phone so tightly that her fingers ached.

"Yes," she told him, and she was proud that her voice only shook a little bit. "It's for us."

He made a wordless noise, like a contented animal settling down in a warm bed, and then there was nothing but the sound of their breathing and the faint hum from the hotel heating unit.

"Well," he said after a while. "Are you distracted enough to get some rest?"

She stretched luxuriously on the bed. "Mmmmmm. I'm not sure I've ever been so well distracted in my life."

He chuckled, and she didn't even mind the smugness in it--hell, he'd earned it. "Well, I'll accept that challenge for another day, but in the meantime… no cooking tomorrow, right?"

"Right." Tomorrow was for pick-ups, dubbing, and whatever else the editing team needed to get the episode ready to air in a couple of nights. Brienne fully expected to spend the entire day feeling awkward and out of place, like a giraffe made entirely of thumbs.

"It's strange not having you around," he mused. "I'd gotten so used to it. I'm thinking of buying one of those cardboard cutouts of movie characters just to have a tall shape looming in the other room. Though I haven't figured out yet how to make it yell at me."

She snorted. "That's so... sweet? I guess?"

"I mean it, though," he added, and damn, it shouldn't be legal for someone to take such a sharp turn from teasing to sincere; surely that was some kind of conversational moving violation. "I do wish you were here. Or I was there. Or something."

She closed her eyes against a sudden rush of feeling, like sunset colors melting across the sky. "Yeah. Me too."

Another short stretch of silence, then, "Sleep well, Brienne." He said her name with a little extra emphasis, obviously remembering what she'd said about it, and she smiled.

"Sleep well. I'll call you again tomorrow."

"I'll be here," he said, just like he had when he'd left her apartment the other night, and for the first time in a very long time, she was starting to maybe believe it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ringing in the new year with some phone sex. As you do. 😂 Love to you all and wishes for a wonderful year. ❤️


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Jaime!" came Tyrion's voice from the foyer. "I've come to save you, you sad bastard."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I said I was going to update on Sundays and Wednesdays, I apparently meant "mostly in the wee hours of the morning on Sundays and Wednesdays," lol. What can I say, I'm a night person.

"Jaime!" came Tyrion's voice from the foyer. "I've come to save you, you sad bastard."

Jaime started, having been half-dozing on the couch while rewatching his recording of Brienne's first episode of _Game of Chefs_ ; the first three times he'd watched it, he'd been so proud of her that he'd wanted to project the whole episode twenty stories high on the side of his building, and now, on the fifth rewatch, he'd drifted into a fantasy about whether the adrenaline flush on her cheeks would look the same when he went down on her for the first time. He glanced around at the mess of take-out containers and empty beer bottles on the coffee table in front of him and did a quick calculation as to whether he could do anything in the next ten seconds to indicate that he wasn't exactly what Tyrion had called him. 

_Nope_ , he decided, and barely managed to exit out of the recording and into live TV before Tyrion came into the room. 

Tyrion glanced at the TV screen. "Taking an interest in manscaping, are we?"

 _Dammit_. The screen was currently filled with dreamily smiling women who were sculpting their brows and removing unwanted facial hair with small lavender wands. "I wasn't really watching--I was thinking of more important things," Jaime said primly.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm pleased to see you taking pride in your appearance," Tyrion told him, big eyes blinking with the worst approximation of innocence Jaime had ever seen in his life. Either of their lives, come to that. "Though I'm sure your giantess wouldn't mind some stubble burn in the right places; give her something to remember you by when she walks, a little Lannister red in her--"

"Tyrion," Jaime growled warningly. Tyrion spread his hands out at his sides, smirking.

"Sorry," he said. "I forget how delicate these things can be in the early stages. You _did_ give her something to remember you by, though, right? Bronn told me how you looked at her at the gala, he said you were--let's see, how did he put it? 'Cunt-struck', I think was the phrase. He's got quite a way with words." 

Jaime bit down on the inside of his cheek and narrowed his eyes. "Is this you helping? Is that what this is?"

"I never said I wouldn't help us both," Tyrion told him unrepentantly, and pulled himself up onto the couch. "So. What the fuck are you doing?"

"I'm having lunch and educating myself on the latest technology in personal grooming products," Jaime answered, waving a hand.

Tyrion rolled his eyes, and Jaime had missed that, someone to roll their eyes at him. "What's it been, a couple of weeks since she left? Have you left this apartment at all in that time, or have you just been sitting here ordering delivery and jerking off to your girl's first show?"

Jaime sputtered. "I have _not_ been--" Well, fine, there had been that one time, but he'd been drinking, and Brienne had only been able to talk for a few minutes that night, and--"What business is it of yours what I do with my time?"

"Well, unfortunately for both of us, you're my brother, and the gods have seen fit to make you my business," Tyrion said. "And this isn't good for you, what you're doing here."

"Oh, please." Jaime snorted. "The master of clean living is going to judge me, now?"

"We're not talking about me right now, we're talking about you--which, last I checked, was your favorite topic." Tyrion's voice had its typical sarcastic edge, but Jaime knew him well enough to know that he was genuinely concerned. And since Tyrion was the only person in the world whose love Jaime trusted absolutely, Jaime figured he owed him a straight answer.

"Tyrion. I'm fine. Really." He fixed Tyrion with a steady gaze and willed him to believe it.

"I know you're fine," Tyrion answered. "You've been 'fine' ever since Aerys. But when you were with her, those few weeks--you were better than that. You were _good_. I saw it. And honestly, before that happened, I wasn't sure I'd ever see it again."

Jaime shifted uncomfortably, unsure what to do with this sudden attack of sincerity. "So?"

"So now that she's gone, you're just sitting here in this holding pattern again, like you stepped offstage and you're waiting for her to come back and give you your cue. She's not Cersei--you don't have to just sit around until she whistles for you."

Jaime leveled a finger at him. "Don't start about Cersei." Cersei, who hadn't spoken to him since the gala. Not that he'd really expected her to, but still.

"I never stopped about Cersei," Tyrion snapped. "But she's not the point. The point, my beloved dipshit brother, is you. You and the fact that you've somehow convinced a woman like Brienne to give you the time of day, and while she's off chasing glory so that she can rescue children from culinary poverty, you're here living vicariously through her instead of actually _living_. How impressed do you think she's going to be with that, when she comes back?"

The back of Jaime's neck was too warm, his shirt itched against his skin, and he couldn't help thinking of the times since Brienne had left that she'd asked him how his day had been and he'd redirected or sidetracked her, telling himself that she didn't really need to hear about him right now. "I'm well aware that Brienne is too good for me, thank you."

"Well, obviously," Tyrion agreed, "but you could _try_."

"The last time I tried, I ended up short two fingers and out of a job," Jaime ground out.

The look Tyrion gave him was a mixture of sympathy and withering disdain, a cocktail that Jaime was pretty sure only his brother could have mixed so effectively. "Jaime. You were born with money, talent, influence, and good looks. The one time--the _one_ time--that failed to get you everything you wanted, and you gave up?"

"You know it's not that simple," Jaime said hotly, and Tyrion sighed and held up both hands, relenting.

"I know. But I also know that a woman like Brienne Tarth wants a partner, not a lapdog. And certainly not a..." Tyrion gestured at the mess on the coffee table. "Whatever is going on here."

Jaime looked at him for a long moment, then sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face, wincing at the ragged rasp of several days' worth of beard. "You're an asshole, you know that?"

"I know," Tyrion replied, unconcerned. He leaned forward and patted Jaime's knee. "That's how I can tell we're related. That and our dashing good looks." He slid off the couch.

"Well, thank the gods for those, anyway," Jaime replied, relieved that they seemed to be edging out of the therapy zone and back onto familiar ground. 

"Speaking of which, as much as I'm enjoying this quality time in your squalor, I just stopped by on my way to meet someone--a couple of someones, actually." There were the waggling eyebrows that Jaime knew so well, but then Tyrion continued, "But… just think about what you want," and dammit. Not quite out of the zone yet, apparently. "What _you_ want, not whoever is barking orders at you at the moment."

"Oh, is that an order?" Jaime shot back.

Tyrion flipped him off, and Jaime grinned, happy to have scored at least one point, even if he felt like he'd caught his opponent with a halfhearted swipe while lying on the ground and bleeding from all four limbs. Whatever. A point was a point.

"I'm going to get one of those," Tyrion mused, motioning to where the infomercial was still going on. "I've been meaning to shave a Lannister lion into the hair above my cock."

"Next time we're going to talk about all the things that are wrong with you," Jaime informed him. "And it's going to be a fucking marathon, so you'll need to clear your calendar for at least a week. Probably a month."

"Take a shower, Jaime," was Tyrion's parting shot as he headed for the door. "You look like shit."

"You wish your shit looked like this!" Jaime yelled after him. Which was not, perhaps, his greatest comeback of all time, and he slumped back against the couch, hoping that Tyrion would forget it by the next time they saw each other.

Later, in the recommended shower, he let the hot water run and tried to consider how best to apply Tyrion's other advice. He'd spent so much time doing what his father asked of him, what Cersei asked of him, what Tyrion asked of him, even what Brienne asked of him, he was out of practice at asking much of himself. 

As he cast around, a phrase of Tyrion's floated into his head: _off chasing glory so she can rescue children from culinary poverty_. Brienne had made it clear that she didn't want his money for her kitchen, but that didn't mean that no one else did. She'd told him how difficult it had been for her, working two jobs to put herself through culinary school, and obviously there were many, many others like her, and even more who were worse off. 

Maybe Jaime could use some of his unearned wealth to help kids like that. A sort of moral money laundering, if there could be such a thing.

The more Jaime considered the idea, the more it excited him, until he was stumbling out of the shower and to his laptop, still dripping, towel wrapped halfheartedly around his waist. He looked up the number for the most prestigious local culinary school--where, of course, he himself had studied--and dialed as quickly as he could, impatiently tossing his wet hair out of his eyes while he waited for someone to answer.

"King's Landing Institute of Culinary Excellence, how can I help you?" finally came across the line.

"Yes, hello," Jaime said, and promptly realized he had absolutely no plan for what he was going to say next. "I… my name is…" No, probably better to stay anonymous; he didn't want his father finding out and getting his tentacles into this somehow. "I'm interested in setting up a scholarship fund."

"Of course, sir; we have a few scholarship programs, all you need to do is download the application from our website, complete it, and--"

"No, no," Jaime interrupted. "I'd like to _create_ a scholarship fund."

There was a pause on the other end. "... Oh. Well, that's… very kind of you."

"I thought so," Jaime agreed cheerfully. "So how do we go about doing this?"

"I'll connect you to our financial aid department." 

After a lengthy conversation with the initially skeptical and ultimately very pleased department director, Jaime hung up the phone with a sore ear, an ache in his hand, and a giddy energy coursing through him that he hadn't felt in a non-Brienne context for as long as he cared to remember. There were still multiple steps to complete, of course, but the foundation had been laid, and only a sea of paperwork stood between him and doing some good in the world for once. He celebrated with a glass of decent champagne (including a silent toast to Tyrion that he would never have dreamed of disclosing) and raiding his refrigerator for whatever fresh food he had hanging around. 

He'd just finished eating his own modest egg and vegetable scramble when his phone rang and he saw Brienne's hotel number on the screen.

"My lady," he said when he picked up, deepening his voice for maximum dramatic effect.

She laughed, that full-throated bray he couldn't get enough of. "You're in a good mood tonight."

"I just finished dinner," he said. "I'd send you pictures of the bell pepper I diced for my scramble but I don't want you to get all hot and bothered at my knife skills so you have to break your quarantine to come ravish me."

"Also it's hard to sext someone on a landline," she pointed out, and then her voice dropped, "but also, I would like to see those pictures when I get my phone back."

It was his turn to laugh, and also to very much wish she was nearby so he could do some ravishing of his own. Maybe he'd turn his attention to inventing teleportation next; just now, he felt like he could do anything. In the meantime, "You can pay for them by telling me what happens in the next episode." He knew they'd filmed the competition segment the previous day, but Brienne, claiming she didn't want to think about it, had steadfastly refused to tell him any details aside from the fact that she'd made it through to the next--and penultimate--round.

"Hmm, I'm not sure," she said in a tone that he sincerely hoped was tending toward flirtatious, "I know we had a deal, but I did most of the work myself, so…"

Yes, definitely flirtatious, then, even if it sounded a little shy, too, and Jaime grinned. Brienne Tarth was intentionally flirting with him--this night was getting better and better. "The deal was that you'd tell me about it if I could talk you through two orgasms. I definitely counted two even from here, so… I think you owe me the full story, Chef." 

Her warm chuckle cascaded down the line. "Honestly, there's not much to tell. We can do the full debrief after you see it, but the short version is, it was a vegetarian challenge, I made--and pulled off, mind you--risotto, and Gendry was eliminated because he under-seasoned his grilled summer squash."

"Poor Gendry," Jaime said, without any pity at all.

"Indeed," Brienne agreed, though unlike him, she actually sounded like she meant it. "But he's a sweet boy, and the judges praised him enough that he should get a nice boost when he goes back into the world." The eliminated contestants were still kept in quarantine, but in a separate location from the remaining competitors, which Jaime had been very happy to hear given that that Hunt fucker didn't deserve to be breathing the same air as Brienne, much less sleeping anywhere near her.

"And what about you?" Jaime pressed. "Did they praise you too?"

"Spoilers!" Brienne objected, the words obviously shaped around a grin. "You'll find out tomorrow."

She sounded happy and relaxed enough that he figured he could anticipate a pleasant surprise, and those were rare enough in his life that he actually didn't mind waiting a little bit longer for it. And besides, she seemed night and day different from the restless bundle of nerves she'd been the week before, and that in itself was worth adding to his list of reasons for celebrating.

"Well," he said, shamelessly angling for yet another entry on said list, "in that case, you should probably come up with something sufficiently distracting for us to do with our time."

She made a noise in the back of her throat that seemed to shiver its way down his neck, through his chest and into his groin. "Wait," she said. "Before we get to that--"

"Get to what, _commis_?" he asked with a smirk. Maybe he'd get lucky and he'd actually get to hear her say it.

"Gods, Jaime, just keep your mind out of the gutter for ten seconds and tell me how your day was," she insisted, laughing. 

It was hardly the first time she'd asked him something in that vein, but it struck him now that part of the reason he never quite knew how to respond was that he was used to that question being the opening salvo in an interrogation, the other person gathering intelligence for a future manipulation or waiting with some sword of judgment dangling over his words. But Brienne didn't do manipulation, her aggression was anything but passive, and when she judged you, you sure as hell knew it. So in this case, the likely explanation seemed to be just that… she wanted to know. 

And as it turned out, he wanted to tell her, today of all days, when he'd done something that he knew would make her proud. But the deal wasn't done yet, and if he'd learned anything in his years at Lannister Corp, it was that nothing was certain until the ink was dry. So instead, he just smiled. "I get to have my secrets for a while, too, _commis_ , so all I'll tell you now is that it was a good day. A very good day."

"Huh. You actually sound like you mean that," she mused, obviously pleased.

"I do," he told her, and she answered,

 _"Good,"_ like she was drawing an emphatic line beneath her affection. "And now," she went on, mischief creeping into her voice, "you can tell me more about your diced peppers. Were they quarter inch? Half?"

He laughed and settled deeper into the couch.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When she heard the week's challenge announced as "make a meal for a loved one" and saw Jaime stride onto the set, flanked by two strangers, she couldn't quite make herself believe that he was real._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which we actually get some cooking in this cooking competition, lol.

When she'd first heard about the shooting schedule--one day for the competition, one day for pickups, with the episodes airing weekly--Brienne had wondered what the hell she was going to do with herself in the breaks between filming. It turned out that between the massive post-filming energy crash, cramming with the favorite recipe books she'd brought with her, working out her stress at the hotel gym, obsessively re-watching the aired episodes to see what lessons she could carry forward, and fumbling her way through the occasional interview, the third challenge was on top of her almost before she knew it. 

Her phone calls with Jaime certainly helped pass the time, too, stretching longer and longer by the night. Sometimes there was sex, sometimes strategy and pop quizzes on how she'd use certain ingredients or tools, and sometimes there was nothing of import whatsoever, just the two of them watching the same cheesy sci-fi movie on cable until she slid into sleep with his wry commentary in her ear.

Bleary-eyed in the shower on the morning of filming, she breathed deeply and focused on marshaling her thoughts for the day ahead. She'd won the second challenge, so now she was the hunted as well as the hunter, and she'd have to be at the top of her game if she wanted to make the finale. Oh, but it had felt _good_ to win, to see approval warming Chef Stark's normally stoic expression as she'd declared Brienne's risotto "brilliant," and Brienne's spur-of-the-moment resolve to surprise Jaime with it had been worth keeping the secret for several long days. He'd been so overwhelmed by her win that he'd broken his self-imposed rule and called _her_ as soon as the episode was over, asking the front desk to forward his call to--as they reported to her--"the room of Brienne Tarth, the greatest chef in the history of _Game of Chefs_ ," and greeting her with a barrage of praise for her skill that was woven so seamlessly with fervent expressions of lust that she thought she might burst into the world's happiest, most delightfully embarrassed fireball.

That had been a _very_ good night.

The next morning had been excellent, too, marked by the delivery of an extravagant display of flowers courtesy of Jaime, a basket of quality coffee and pastries from Pod and Margaery, and a heartfelt message from her father left on the voicemail of her room phone. For all that it had only been a few weeks since she'd seen Jaime or her friends, it felt like an eternity, an entirely different life. The physical reminders of them only made her all the more aware that she was carrying their hopes as well as her own, and made her miss them all the more fiercely.

Which was why--after arriving at the studio, getting her makeup and wardrobe taken care of, and taking a few moments for nervous camaraderie with Daenerys and Tormund--when she heard the week's challenge announced as "make a meal for a loved one" and saw Jaime stride onto the set, flanked by two strangers, she couldn't quite make herself believe that he was real.

For one thing, he was even more ludicrously attractive than she remembered, dressed in a dark red button-down shirt and charcoal grey slacks, the glints of silver in his hair competing with the gold to catch the studio lights. His eyes gleamed like a pilot light ready to ignite, and though she knew he was capable of deploying a very convincing mask of professional charm, he didn't seem to be able to find it now, staring openly at her with a hopeful half-smile on his face.

"We know it's been a while, so we'll give you a moment before we explain the rest of the challenge," Chef Martell was saying to them all with a knowing grin. Jaime, clearly reading Brienne's utter inability to form a coherent thought, walked over to her and pulled her close.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, "I would've warned you, but I couldn't risk you getting disqualified if they found out." His thumb was sliding back and forth through the shorter hair at the back of her neck, and she shivered, his low tone combined with the heat of his touch making her acutely aware of all the things she'd said and done over the past few weeks at the urging of that same voice in her ear.

At least this explained the energy he'd had on their phone call the night before, a mix of banked excitement, jitteriness, and barely-suppressed glee over something he refused to explain.

The warmth of him was starting to melt through her shock, enough that she could make her arms move and wrap them around him, not caring that she was crushing the fabric of his designer shirt in her fists. His chest rose and fell as his shoulders relaxed against hers, and she forgot the cameras surrounding them for a few seconds and closed her eyes, just let herself inhale the scent of his aftershave and believe she was home.

Then Chef Martell made a show of clearing his throat, and Brienne's eyes snapped open. She stumbled back from Jaime, knowing she was probably bright red and dazed-looking, but he slid on that Lannister mask and bowed over her hand, bringing it to his lips. 

"My lady," he said, with a wink that was somehow both for her and for the cameras, his assurance that he'd draw their attention while she got her breath back.

Looking around the room, she saw that she wasn't the only one flustered; Daenerys was also blushing and laughing as she came out of an embrace with a beautiful dark-haired woman whom Brienne could only assume was Missandei, the linguistics professor girlfriend that Daenerys had mentioned a few times, usually with a very similar blush. Tormund, meanwhile, was having his formidable cheeks pinched by a woman who very much looked like if someone had put Tormund in the dryer on high: somewhat smaller, a lot more wrinkled, and considerably less bearded, but unmistakably the same gene pool.

"Here, chefs, is this week's challenge," said Chef Stark, taking center stage. "We've asked each of your loved ones what their favorite meal is. You'll be cooking for them this time, as well as for us, and if the meal that you prepare matches up with their favorite meal, you'll receive an additional fifteen minutes for the first round of the live finale… assuming, of course, that you're one of our final two."

Brienne glanced at Jaime, trying to keep her smile intact despite a sudden flare of dread; she had no idea what his favorite meal was, and a fifteen-minute advantage was more than enough to be the difference between winning and losing. He grinned and leaned closer to her.

"If it's any comfort," he said, and he squeezed her hand lightly but noticeably on the word, "I'm sure I'll love whatever you make." On the underside of her palm, his fingers were tracing a persistent half-moon shape. Then he kissed her hand again and released her, letting himself be directed toward the special table they'd set up for him and the other guests.

Chef Silverfist moved toward the center of the room now, ready to announce their time was starting. Brienne's mind was galloping like a horse on a short tether, circling around _comfort, comfort, comfort_ , and whatever Jaime had been trying to tell her with his fingers. 

Chef Silverfist started counting down from five. Panic was licking at Brienne's throat now. She looked across the room and saw Jaime watching her, hands folded in front of him, eyes calm and steady, like he didn't have a care in the world. Then, just as Chef Sliverfist got down to two, Jaime winked at Brienne again, this time clicking his tongue exaggeratedly, and she thought, exasperated, _What a cheeseball_ , and then it hit her: comfort food. Half-moon. Cheese.

_What the hell_ , she decided, macaroni and cheese, and raced for the pantry as the clock officially started.

It would take time to bake, so she'd have to move quickly; Jaime liked her seafood dishes and he and Chef Stark both liked a strong flavor profile, so she loaded up a basket with cavatappi pasta, shrimp, four kinds of cheese (two Dornish, for Chef Martell's benefit), cream, evaporated milk for extra texture, eggs, garlic, shallots, breadcrumbs, and a handful of spice jars.

When she brought everything back to her station, she took the pasta and cheese out first, watching Jaime out of the corner of her eye, and when she saw him grin and lean back in his chair, she wanted to pump her fist in the air and yell.

She had this. She fucking _had_ this. 

Her focus narrowed to the work in front of her: boiling water, shredding cheese. Peeling and deveining the shrimp, sauteeing it with butter, garlic, and a generous coating of spices. Pasta in the water. Butter in a pan to start the roux. At this point she was used to hearing Jaime in her head while she was cooking, but having him actually in the room again kept giving her a sort of echo effect, familiar and new at the same time.

"Macaroni and cheese, hmm?" That was Chef Martell, coming over to lean on the edge of her station and bat his frankly unfair eyelashes at her. 

Initially, when the judges had started coming over to interrupt her while she was cooking, she'd wanted to shove towels in their mouths, but by now, she was becoming a little more adept at juggling questions in addition to ingredients. "The classics are classic for a reason, Chef," she told him, half her attention on making sure her roux didn't burn. 

He laughed. "Classic, yes, but for a man or a child?"

Brienne knew there was history between Jaime and Martell--not to mention between him and Chef Stark, and Daenerys; honestly, Jaime had a _lot_ of history to his name for someone barely into his forties--and ordinarily she'd have just let them measure their dicks on their own time, but Jaime was _right there_ beaming his support at her and sending her secret messages to help her win, and she couldn't let that one pass, especially not with the cameras rolling. 

So she squared her shoulders and did her best to channel him. "Oh," she said, popping a bit of cheese into her mouth, "he's definitely a man," then poured cream into her pan and hoped the steam would excuse her blush.

Chef Martell outright cackled this time, surprise in every decibel of it, and slapped his hand down on the corner of her station. "You're a lucky man, Lannister!" he called over to Jaime.

"Believe me, I know," she heard Jaime answer. She couldn't take her eyes off her sauce to see his face, but his voice could have sauteed her shrimp all on its own.

She got her pasta in the oven without further incident or innuendo, which gave her the chance to move on to the rest of her dish. She knew that Chef Silverfist especially would appreciate something fresh to cut through the heaviness of the cheese, so she'd decided to make a winter salad to serve with it. Sure enough, by the time Brienne was halfway through peeling her celeriac, Chef Silverfist strolled over from where she'd been grilling--so to speak--Tormund at the adjacent station. 

"And what are you working on?"

"Celeriac salad, Chef, with apples and parsley and a creamy lemon vinaigrette," Brienne answered.

"Sounds delicious," Chef Silverfist said. "And since there isn't much point to having special guests here if we don't put you all on the spot: tell us, how did you and Mr. Lannister meet?" 

_Oh, gods._ Brienne had found Chef Silverfist to be genuinely sweet and kind, in addition to her culinary gifts, and she had a sort of girls'-night-with-wine tone to her voice that Brienne might have enjoyed under other circumstances. But given that Brienne was currently trying to matchstick-cut celeriac as quickly as possible, the origins of her possibly-fake-but-also-maybe-slightly-real relationship with Jaime were the last thing she wanted to talk about.

"I was working for Chef Baratheon, catering a Lannister Corp event," she explained. "Jaime…" She trailed off. She'd had a whole pat speech for this at one point, since she'd already been asked in interviews a couple of times, but her brain was too preoccupied to come up with it.

"Jaime," put in the man himself from his seat several feet away, "was eating the best cioppino he'd had in his life and found himself irresistibly drawn to finding out who made it."

Brienne glanced up at him, surprised he remembered so specifically what she'd been making.

Chef Silverfist held her hand to her heart. "That's so sweet."

"And you, Chef Tarth?" That was from Chef Stark, seated at the judges' table, as she typically was. She wasn't much for wandering during the competition, preferring to observe and offer calm-yet-terrifyingly-incisive critiques later, which was exactly the tone she was using now. "Did you know Mr. Lannister by reputation before you met?"

Brienne blinked and stopped chopping for a moment. While Jaime was too practiced to wince at the question, Brienne could see his shoulders slump the tiniest bit, and his expression darken like a cloud had settled over him. Whatever professional feud there was between his father and Ned Stark, Brienne had heard the admiration in Jaime's voice when he was discussing Catelyn, and something swelled in her chest. 

"I was a fan of his work long before I met him," she said--cool but firm, because she admired Chef Stark, too. "After coming to know him, I'm now an even bigger fan of the person behind that work."

She ducked her head and went back to chopping after that, but not before another quick look at Jaime revealed not the cocky grin she expected--a promise that he'd crow over this later--but wide, stunned green eyes and parted lips, like he'd just seen some sort of mythical creature and was trying to reconcile it with his reality.

"Fifteen minutes left, chefs!" called Martell from where he was leaning near Daenerys' station, and Brienne took a deep breath and redoubled her efforts.

All of them came down to the wire with their dishes, but eventually they all managed to get everything plated with seconds to spare. While Brienne mopped sweat from her forehead, she let herself assess the competition: Tormund had made what looked like some kind of stew, warm and inviting in a thick ceramic bowl with a chunk of perfectly-toasted bread on the side; Daenerys' dish for Missandei was a bright scoop of callaloo over rice, framed by what Brienne assumed were jerk fried plantains. Brienne was proud of her own offering, the crisp breadcrumbs golden over their bed of cheese and shrimp, red speckles of cayenne and smoked paprika throughout like tiny bursts of flame. All of it was cradled in creamy white ramekins on equally white plates, mounds of salad adding color and crunch on the side. 

From the smiles all around, she strongly suspected that they'd all guessed the favorite dishes correctly. No advantage there, then, but at least she wouldn't be at a disadvantage, either, if she moved on.

"Guests are served first," said Chef Silverfist when they were done, "so chefs, please present your dishes to your loved ones."

Brienne, already anticipating the gloating that was in her future at being asked to serve him, gritted her teeth and carried one of her plates over to Jaime. And sure enough, he seemed to have recovered enough of his innate… infuriatingness that he was leaning back in his chair with a broad smirk. Apparently the gloating was going to be in her present, then.

"The service in this place is _excellent_ ," he told her, the _commis_ unspoken but clear as a summer day to her anyway. 

"I'd be happy to shove it down your throat for you if you'd like more help," she answered, serene, and Chef Martell guffawed. When Brienne looked in that direction, she could see even Chef Stark's lips twitching. Well, that was an unexpected bonus.

"That's very kind, but I think I can manage on my own." Jaime scooped up a bite of the macaroni and cheese, blew on it for a few seconds--which Brienne was _not_ going to find distracting, dammit--then slipped it into his mouth. 

Brienne knew he'd claim he loved it regardless, but even so, her heart was pounding in her throat; if he didn't like it, she'd know right away, and that would probably mean she was screwed with the judges as well. 

His eyelids fell shut as he chewed and swallowed. When he opened them again, the look he gave her was bursting with pride and, not far under that, simmering with heat. "Exceptional," he told her. "Truly. My compliments." He inclined his head to her.

Relief making her light-headed, Brienne couldn't hold back the genuine grin that spread across her face.

"And tell us what your favorite dish was?" Chef Silverfist prompted Jaime.

"Besides her, you mean?" he replied, his smile going mischievous as he cocked a thumb at Brienne, which made her ears go so hot she was sure they were glowing, which in turn made her glad she didn't have to focus on anything in the near future. Clearly pleased with himself, Jaime held up the slice of posterboard that was face-down next to him so that everyone could read that it said _MACARONI AND CHEESE_ in his slanty left-handed writing.

He'd made a little macaroni shape over the _i_. Brienne was in so much trouble.

Fortunately, they moved on to the rest of the presentations before she could swoon or kiss him or otherwise make a fool of herself. And competition or not, Brienne found her heart warming, watching her co-contestants with their loved ones: "Tastes just like home," Missandei said with a private smile at Daenerys that made Brienne blush by proxy, and Tormund's mother sniffled her way through telling him that his stew was even better than when she used to make it, which caused him to turn bright red and pat her arm awkwardly but fervently. 

When the judges had given their feedback--a mix of positive and negative that gave Brienne absolutely no idea what to expect regarding eliminations--the contestants were herded toward their separate room to await the judges' decision. On the way out, Jaime grabbed Brienne's hand and surreptitiously pressed a scrap of paper into it; Brienne closed her fingers around it while she filed out behind Tormund and Daenerys, desperate to know what it was but reluctant to look at it while the cameras' prying eyes were nearby.

"Well," Tormund said, looking at Brienne and Daenerys as they all collapsed into their chairs around the small table, "that was fucking exhausting."

Brienne laughed. "It was." 

Daenerys smiled and nodded, a little tightly; she kept her emotions in check the majority of the time, which was why it had been fascinating to see her beaming at Missandei. 

Tormund, by contrast, wore his passions--so to speak--on his sleeve; after the first day of filming, he'd cheerfully told Brienne that he thought she was fantastic and asked if she'd be interested in fucking him. She'd declined with as much kindness as she could, given her shock, and though he hadn't asked again, he'd made it very obvious on a number of occasions that he was available the very instant she changed her mind.

Under the table, Brienne turned the paper that Jaime had given her over and over in her hands, wondering if she could somehow translate whatever it was through the pressure of her fingers. The paranoid, often-bruised part of her heart could argue that everything that Jaime had said and done out there might have been just for the cameras, but that scrap of paper was obviously for her, and without even knowing what was on it, she was already tumbling headlong into treasuring it. She didn't even realize she had a soft smile on her face until Tormund groaned.

" _Him_ , really?" he asked mournfully. "But he's so _small_."

To Brienne's surprise, Daenerys snorted a laugh, which she quickly swallowed. Brienne gave Tormund a rueful look and raised a shoulder, unsure of what to say.

Looking at the other two, it struck Brienne suddenly that she'd miss them when this was all over. One on hand, they were competitors, and Tormund had a blatant unrequited interest in Brienne and Brienne's fake boyfriend was infamous for having tried to ruin Daenerys' father, but on the other hand, every relationship was complex, right? They'd been in the trenches together now, over these past few weeks, and that meant something, soap opera dramas or no.

She transferred Jaime's paper to one hand and placed the other hand palm-down in the middle of the table. After a few seconds, Tormund put his meaty paw on top of it. Daenerys' hand was pale and small on top of his.

"It's been an honor," Brienne told them both.

Tormund's answering grin was fierce.

"It has," Daenerys agreed.

When they all took their hands back, Tormund launched into a story from his wrestling days, one with so much profanity in it that censoring it for TV would yield mostly a series of long beeps. While Daenerys and the cameras were distracted with that, Brienne seized the opportunity to peek down at the paper in her hand.

Its edges were torn; Jaime had probably ripped it off the corner of his ridiculous _MACARONI AND CHEESE_ placard. On it, he'd scrawled:

_Microphones everywhere, so_

_1\. You were glorious today_

_and, relatedly,_

_2\. It's all I can do to keep my hands off of you_

_Oh._ Brienne's entire body flushed like all her veins had turned into hot springs, and she immediately crushed the paper in her hand, fighting simultaneous urges to eat it before anyone else could read it and make fun of her, and to take it home and keep it in a frame next to her bed. They'd be calling them in soon for the final decision, so she didn't let herself think much at all before she fished a pen out of the pocket of her coat and scribbled a few words of her own underneath Jaime's.

"Time to head back," called one of the producers, and Brienne folded the note into her hand as they filed back out again.

Jaime, Missandei, and Tormund's mother were still at their table; Jaime still had his game face on but his eyes were a reflection of her own nervousness, and she quickly shifted her attention to the judges. _One person's terror at a time._

Chef Stark folded her hands and leaned forward. "We want all three of you to know that you should be very proud of the work you did today--our decision was very close. However, we did have to make one, so. The first person who will be advancing to our finale is…" She paused, as she always did, those agonizing drawn-out television pauses that made Brienne want to claw her own eyes out when she was only a spectator. When it was her highest aspirations on the line, it felt like there were worms writhing under her skin and her heart was going to pound its way out of her chest.

"Chef Targaryen," Chef Stark said finally. Daenerys broke into relieved, thrilled laughter, and Missandei rushed out from behind the table to hug her. Which she was probably not supposed to do, but what the hell, it was a special occasion.

"And the second person moving on to the finale will be…"

Brienne eyed Tormund, who was eyeing her back, for once without any suggestion in his gaze. His stew had looked delicious, and the judges had praised it wholeheartedly, raving about the depth of flavor he'd achieved in such a short time. _I've gone this long without twenty-five thousand dragons_ , Brienne rationalized, and maybe this wasn't the only path to funding her kitchen, the show would give her a publicity boost regardless and maybe she could take enough jobs that--

"Chef Tarth," Chef Stark continued, and Brienne's whole world went blank for a moment while she tried to process what that meant.

The next thing she knew, Jaime's arms were around her, the familiar, spicy scent of him teasing her nose, his voice fierce in her ear, "I knew it, I fucking _knew it_ ," and she returned the embrace partially just to keep from falling over as he swung her from side to side in an exuberant sort of dance. Through glazed eyes, she could see Chef Silverfist beaming at her and Chef Stark giving her an unmistakably proud smile. Tormund, unsurprisingly, looked disappointed, but he vented a roar up to the ceiling before wrapping Daenerys in a hug so vehement that she almost disappeared in it.

Meanwhile, Chef Martell came over and clapped both her and Jaime on the shoulder, his grin just barely to the right side of appropriate.

"Better not fuck this up, Lannister," he told Jaime. "Women like her don't come along every day."

Jaime just grinned right back. "That's the thing, Martell," he said. "There are no women like her. There's only her." Then he turned to the cameras, still hovering. "Did you get that?" he demanded. "There's only her," and leaned up to press a kiss to the side of her head.

Brienne's cheeks were aching from smiling, she was sure her skin would never be its normal color again, and at the moment, she was certain she could have marched into any heaven or hell and challenged any god there.

Given that, the part of her that was always waiting to be hurt was blessedly silent for once as she slipped the piece of paper into Jaime's shirt pocket, the perfect exclamation point to her victory.

What with the multitude of cameras in the vicinity, he didn't reach for it right away, so Brienne happened to be across the room good-naturedly trash-talking with Daenerys when she looked over and caught him watching her. Her paper was caught between his fingers and his expression could have burned the building right to the ground. 

Her message had been pretty simple. _It's all I can do to keep my hands off of you_ , he'd written, and she'd responded, 

_So don't. Room 306._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY FOR THE CLIFFHANGER. *ducks*
> 
> Credit for the "make a meal for your loved one" challenge goes to the amazing SD Wolfpup, who requested that when this story was in the veeeeery early stages, barely more than a premise. It ended up being so integral that I can't imagine the story without it, and it was also super fun to write, so thank you to her for the excellent idea!! (As well as for many other things, of course. I assume that you're all reading [Heart Full of Gasoline](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21117128) but JUST IN CASE.)
> 
> Also, the celeriac salad that Brienne makes in this chapter is based on [this one](https://www.saveur.com/dan-kluger-celery-root-apple-salad-recipe/), which my brother found a few years ago when we were looking for a good winter salad at the holidays, and it is DELICIOUS. Highly recommend.
> 
> And finally, the "how did you two meet/fall in love" thing is one of my favorite aspects of fake dating stories--where the fake daters tell truths to other people!! that they haven't told each other!!--so while this isn't EXACTLY that, it's at least my tribute to it. :D


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I was just going to get ice," she explained, gesturing with the bucket._
> 
> _Jaime nodded. "Do you want me to go get it?"_
> 
> _"No, that's fine, I…" She pointed at the condensation from the bottle, mingling with sweat on his hand. "That looks pretty cold already."_
> 
> _He held up the bottle and examined it like he'd never seen it before. "Yes, it does seem to be pretty cold." This was going great._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since we're well over the halfway mark now, in terms of wordcount, I just wanted to say thank you SO MUCH to all of you, again, for your incredibly sweet and generous support for this story. I so much appreciate it! ♥
> 
> Also, HaloChagrin commented on the last chapter to suggest that likely activities for Room 306 were obviously watching TV and reading, to which I can only say: yes! TOTALLY what happens in this chapter. OBVIOUSLY. (Seriously that comment made me laugh so hard, I loved it.)

Despite having a literal invitation in his pocket, Jaime found himself hesitating outside the door to Brienne's room.

It wasn't that he wasn't desperate to go in. Watching her thrive under the pressure of the competition, watching her mind churn and her hands move confidently from task to task, watching all the judges watching and appreciating her, all while he couldn't touch her or even speak much to her, had been the sweetest torture imaginable. He wasn't sure he'd ever been so proud of anyone, or so glad to have a table to hide his lower half. He'd written her that note as an outlet, because it was either that or collapse helplessly at her feet, and he'd thought maybe it would make her blush, give her a temporary distraction from worrying about the outcome.

It hadn't really occurred to him that she might respond, especially in such a spectacular fashion.

He'd meant every single word of what he'd written, but still. A fleeting kiss was one thing, and phone sex had at least a bit of distance built in for safety, but if he went in that room, peeled her out of her clothes and put his mouth to her skin and did even a fraction of the things he was aching to do, that would be it for him, he knew it. His heart would be in her large, exquisitely capable hands, and while trusting her was easy, trusting himself to deserve her was an entirely different proposition.

When the door in front of him opened, he made an undignified yelping noise and almost dropped the champagne he'd brought.

"Fucking--" Brienne clapped a hand over the center of her chest as her startled expression faded into relief and exasperation, "Jaime. What in all the hells are you doing?" She was holding an ice bucket in her other hand. 

_Funny you should mention fucking_ was the suggestion from his degenerate brain, which he elected, for once, not to take. Instead, he held up the champagne bottle and glasses. "I brought champagne."

She blinked, and after that suave opening line, he wouldn't have blamed her if she'd been regretting her invitation entirely, but she swung the door wider and stepped back to make room for him. "Come in."

He followed her into the room. Her hair was very slightly damp, her eyes brilliant against her milky skin, which was scrubbed free of her TV makeup so he could see all her freckles; she must have taken a shower at some point in the few hours since he'd been asked to leave the set while they wrapped up the last tasks for the day. She was wearing a faded button-down shirt made of some sort of soft-looking cloth, and the jeans that clung to her legs had small rips in them that were made by use and not fashion. He wanted to set his fingers into those rips and pull.

"I was just going to get ice," she explained, gesturing with the bucket.

Jaime nodded. "Do you want me to go get it?"

"No, that's fine, I…" She pointed at the condensation from the bottle, mingling with sweat on his hand. "That looks pretty cold already."

He held up the bottle and examined it like he'd never seen it before. "Yes, it does seem to be pretty cold." This was going _great_.

"Do you want to open it now?" she prompted, when he didn't follow up that incisive observation with anything else.

"Sure." He set the glasses on the small table and grabbed a nearby hand towel to cover up the cork; the last thing he needed was to put someone's eye out. What he hadn't considered was that he had a special opener at home to help him with these things, given that it wasn't so easy with his injured hand, and he struggled with the bottle for a minute before she took it away from him.

"Here." She managed to get the bottle open, and he managed not to jump out of his skin at the pop of the cork, and she poured two glasses and handed one to him.

"To the finale," he said.

"To the finale," she agreed, and the light that warmed her eyes as she said it was bright and fearless. He clinked his glass to hers and then swallowed half of its contents in one gulp, the bubbles burning as they crowded each other down his throat.

She watched him, her expression growing wary. "Need a drink that much, do you?"

"What? No. No!" He tried to laugh. 

Very carefully, she set her glass down on the table, having barely had a sip. "Did you have any trouble finding the hotel?"

"What?" Jaime repeated. He could tell he was on dangerous ground here, but he didn't know why. It was an uncomfortably familiar sensation.

"We finished filming hours ago. I just wondered if it took you a while to get here because you couldn't find the hotel," she elaborated, still with that deliberate calm.

"Oh." His laugh was a little more convincing this time. "No, I just… they said you had things to do, and I didn't want to get in the way."

"So…" She hesitated, then rushed out, "it has nothing to do with not wanting to be seen coming here?"

He gaped at her. "Brienne, in a week, I'm going to be seen with you on national TV, so I'm pretty sure that particular ship is halfway around the world by now. Yes, it did occur to me that it's probably a good idea not to advertise that I'm here because I'm breaking your quarantine, but that's not--"

"Fuck the quarantine," she interrupted him. "I ran into Missandei in the hall earlier, for one thing, and you told me you had to sign all those agreements to be here, anyway--you know all there is to know, and the show has to think it's safer to have you here than anywhere else. And besides, even when you finally did show up, I found you waiting outside my door like you were having to psych yourself up to be near me, and now you're gulping champagne like it's oxygen, and just. What the fuck is that about?"

"Brienne--"

"If you're backing out, at least do me the courtesy of being honest with me," she barrelled on, "instead of slinking in here and trying to drink enough to be able to bring yourself to--"

"I was nervous, all right?" he burst out, both defensive and desperate to stem the tide of her misunderstanding. "Despite whatever rumors you may have heard, I haven't actually done this sort of thing very often, and I was nervous. By all the gods, Brienne. Do you really think I've just been leading you on all this time? Do you really think I could do that?"

"You wouldn't be the first!" she snapped, and the pain in her blazing eyes went straight to his heart. "And for the record, I haven't done this sort of thing very often, either. Almost never, in fact."

"So?" he said. "Are _you_ backing out?" _Oh, gods, please don't let her be backing out._

"No!" she exclaimed. "I'm just saying that I'm nervous, too!"

"Well then that's something we've got in common!" he retorted, exasperated. "So what are we waiting for?"

"I don't know! Maybe you should have some more champagne!"

"Maybe you should--" he started, and then suddenly her mouth was on his, and he didn't know who had moved first and didn't care, just clasped her to him and held on for dear life.

"Stubborn--" he managed against her tongue as they swayed together and he worked a hand up between them to tug at the buttons of her shirt.

"I wore something with buttons for you," she told him breathlessly between kisses, "I showered twice while I was waiting, gods, Jaime, I thought I'd go insane waiting for you--"

He groaned and dragged his mouth down the line of her jaw, to the soft skin of her neck. "I've been waiting to do this since the first night I met you, don't tell me about insanity, woman."

Her throaty laugh vibrated against his tongue, echoed in his groin. He backed her up until she ran into the end of the bed and collapsed down onto it, hands fisted in his shirt to tug him down with her.

"So this is where you were, all those nights on the phone?" he asked, stretching out alongside her, sparing a glance for the nondescript floral coverlet and the cordless phone on the nightstand. An image jumped into his mind: her neck arched and her skillful fingers busy between her legs while he whispered in her ear; the thought, combined with the sight and feel of her next to him, against him, _finally_ , had him holding in a whimper.

"This is where I was," she answered. "Wishing you were here." She reached for the buttons of her shirt; he'd only gotten two undone before he'd been distracted by her neck.

He closed a hand over hers. "Since I _am_ here, that's my job now."

"So do it," she shot back, and he laughed low at the challenge in her eyes.

"Yes, my lady." He leaned down to kiss her, deep and eager as he worked at her buttons like he was unwrapping a series of presents. She sank her fingers into his hair, nails scratching lightly over his scalp, sending tiny tingling shocks down the back of his neck. When he came to the last button, he ran his hand up the exposed middle of her torso, and moaned into her mouth when his fingertips met only skin all the way to her collarbone.

"I didn't bring any nice bras," she told him with an embarrassed little chuckle when he pulled back so he could see as well as feel.

He slid her shirt open to reveal small, creamy breasts. One of them fit perfectly into his palm; she sucked in a breath and arched into his hand.

"I'm so glad you didn't," he said fervently before putting his mouth to her other breast, teasing a taut raspberry-colored nipple with his tongue.

"Well, now I'm glad too," she replied, though the end of the last word was lost in an inarticulate noise as he lavished attention on her breasts. She tasted fresh and clean and a little salty, like a breeze coming in off the ocean, and before long she was starting to roll beneath him, undulations rippling up her body like waves. Her fingers wound into his hair and gripped it, tentatively.

He paused long enough to give her a quick grin. "Harder," he said, "I like it," and there was a fierce glint in her eyes as she loosened her own restraints and closed her fingers, making sharp pinpoints of awareness all along his skull. He hummed approvingly and started kissing his way down her body.

"Wait--" she said, and although everything in him was clamoring greedily for _more more more_ , he stopped and looked up at her.

"What's wrong? Too fast? We can--"

"You're wearing way too many clothes," she objected, and he almost collapsed in relief.

"In a minute." He nipped at her stomach, popped the button on her jeans. "Just--I need to taste you. _Please._ " The last word came out ragged, pulled from somewhere deep in his chest.

A tremor ran through her when he said it, and she nodded and lifted her hips to help him tug her jeans and boyshorts down the impossible length of her legs. He let his mouth lead on the journey back up, over her muscular calves, her adorably knobby knees, detouring to her hipbones and lingering when he reached her thighs. Long and strong, just like the rest of her, and he licked and nuzzled and scraped with his teeth, carefully avoiding her center until she was writhing restlessly against him.

"Jaime!" She reached for his hair again, and she wasn't gentle now. "Either stop teasing or let me get you naked." Her voice was thready.

"Yes, Chef," he said this time, and her near-hysterical laugh turned into a moan as he spread her open with his fingers and dipped his tongue inside her.

Oh, _gods_ , she tasted good, salty and sweet and sour melting over his tongue, so wet already that his cock jumped in response. He lapped at her hungrily, reveling in the challenge of keeping her hips pinned to the bed as she fought to thrust against him. She still had her fingers tangled in his hair, and they gave him blessedly clear direction, tugging and tightening to urge him here or keep him there. The small, greedy sounds she was making were familiar from more than one of their phone calls, but hearing them just above him, feeling her thighs trembling around his head, was like nothing he could have imagined even in his most vivid fantasies.

"Jaime--" she gasped, hips hitching. "I need--I want--"

"What?" He pulled his mouth away only long enough to ask. "Anything. Tell me." Her face and chest were flushed pink with arousal, her beautiful eyes glassy, and he felt a primal surge of pride.

"Your fingers," she said, her eyes squeezing shut like she couldn't quite look at him while she said it. "Please, Jaime, _please_ , I'm so close--"

"Of course," he said, "I've got you," and he slid two fingers inside her without further preamble, making her bow up off the bed as her inner muscles clenched around him. "That's it. Come for me, Brienne. I know you can." He thrust in and out of her, hard and steady, adding a third finger when she seemed ready, sucking her clit between his lips. She moaned, half-muffled like she'd put her hand or arm over her mouth. He didn't look up to see, just kept going, with her soft cries in his ears and her muscles clutching him close. Kept going until all he could hear or see or smell or taste was her, until she tensed and shuddered and soaked his face, breathing his name into her own skin.

He gently withdrew his fingers, petted her while she quaked through the aftershocks, then wiped his chin and hand on the sheets and crawled up her body to sink into her mouth. Her lips were warm and pliant, her tongue lazy as it stroked his.

"Good?" he asked her when he pulled back, smoothing her tousled, sweaty hair away from her temples. He could see her own teeth marks still faintly imprinted on the skin of her forearm.

She wrinkled her nose, but the smile she gave him was wide and unguarded. "You know it was, you smug bastard."

He laughed. "Regular performance evaluations are very important," he informed her, and to be fair, it did come out pretty smug. It was difficult not to be, when she was all laid out there in front of him like a dreamy-eyed feast. And in fact, his cock was reminding him that the second course would be extremely welcome right about now, but he didn't want to rush her, so he just leaned in and pressed his mouth to the sensitive spot just underneath her ear.

She trailed a hand up his arm, fingers seeking out the notch of his open collar. "Jaime?"

"Hmm?" She smelled phenomenal, like sex and hotel soap. 

"You know how you have that thing about buttons?"

"I definitely do." Even more so now, after she'd worn them especially for him. 

"Well." Before he knew what was happening, she'd flipped him onto his back and was hovering above him, straddling his thighs. "I'm much too impatient for that." And she set her other hand to his collar and ripped, sending buttons popping like fireworks into the air.

Before the last one even landed, Jaime was harder than he'd ever been in his life.

Brienne, meanwhile, was giggling--Brienne, _giggling_ \--as she tugged his shirt up toward his head, her expression slightly shy but mostly inordinately pleased with herself. She'd only managed to dislodge about a third of the buttons, but that couldn't have mattered less; he already knew she'd be starring in his fantasies as the Button-Slayer for the rest of his days. It was more than enough to get his shirt off over his head, anyway, and she raked her short fingernails through his chest hair, making him arch his back and keen.

"Don't worry, we can sew them back on," she was saying. "I actually really like that shirt."

"Brienne," he gritted out, "I can't stress this enough-- _fuck the shirt_ ," and she laughed.

"I thought you were going to fuck _me_ , but I support your kinks even if I don't share them, so if you'd rather--"

He made a guttural noise and tumbled her underneath him again, her hair spreading out on the pillow, framing her heated face. She was loose-limbed and playful while he was near out of his mind with need, and with what was left of his brain, he made a mental note that a Brienne who had already had an orgasm was a Brienne who was capable of torturing him in the most delicious way.

She took pity on him, though, opening his slacks so she could slide her hand inside, under his boxer-briefs to where he was rock-hard and leaking. When she stroked him, he could feel the knife calluses under her index finger, adding an extra buzz of friction that made his mouth drop open and his eyes fall shut. He thrust eagerly into her grip.

" _Fuck_ , Brienne."

She closed her teeth around his earlobe, then soothed the sting with her tongue. "I hope you brought condoms, because thanks to you, I'm not sure I can walk right now, and it would be pretty awkward to ask room service for them."

"Condoms, yes, right." They weren't something he exactly kept in stock these days, but Tyrion had brought him a jumbo box when he'd heard about the plan for this challenge, and Jaime had tucked a few in his wallet just in case--after Tyrion had left, of course.

He'd never been so glad for his brother's unremitting dedication to sex.

Brienne gave him one last caress and then released him, and he stumbled off the bed, shedding the rest of his clothes as quickly as he could before digging into his wallet. When he looked up from sheathing himself with the condom, Brienne was watching him, one arm behind her head.

"What?" he asked, suddenly self-conscious. He imagined he did look a bit ridiculous, with his shiny dick bobbing in front of him, practically begging for her attention.

The smile she gave him was soft. "Nothing. Just… Jaime Lannister. Here. In my bed." She stretched out a hand to him, and he went more than willingly, though there was a pang in his chest as he prowled up the length of her.

"Is that what you want?" he asked, putting some growl into it. "To be fucked by the Golden Lion?" He'd play the part for her as long as he could, if it would make her happy. If it meant that he could have her.

She put her hand to his cheek and looked up at him with those wide horizon eyes, then reached up with her other hand to tangle his scarred fingers in hers, bringing them to her lips. "Like I said earlier, to Chef Stark," she said quietly. "I admired your work before. I like you much more now." As she spoke, she opened her legs for him, and he surged forward and sank into her with a groan.

"Of course," she went on, a little breathless as he worked his way inside, her fingers trailing through the hair at the back of his neck, "you _can_ be incredibly annoying sometimes," and he really did growl this time, and thrust hard enough to move her a couple of inches up the bed. Her mouth went slack and her breath hitched.

"Nope." He was clinging to coherence by the barest of threads; she was so tight, so hot, so wet for him. "You already said the nice thing, you can't take it back now."

"Damn," she muttered, but she was laughing softly, and when he thrust again, even deeper this time, her hips canted toward his and his name slipped from her lips on a sigh. 

"Gods, you have no idea how many times I've thought about this." He was only half-aware of what he was saying, most of his focus narrowed to finding a rhythm and angle that would make her come apart for him again. She was all grace and power underneath him, legs wrapped around his back, strong fingers digging into his triceps. "Every time you smiled at me, or insulted me, or made a perfect sauce, or made ridiculous noises at a stray dog in the park. It got to be so every time you moved or breathed, I could hardly think with wanting to touch you."

"Moved or breathed?" she asked, gasping as he twisted his hips. "Sounds like you might need to raise your standards a little bit."

Lost in sensation as he was, that was enough to jolt him back, and he braced himself on his right arm so he could reach up with his other hand and hold her chin between his finger and thumb. "Brienne. I told you I haven't done this very often before. It wasn't for lack of options. If I have to believe that you like me, you have to believe that I want you." He let go of her chin and reached back to hitch one of her knees over his shoulder, to open her up more, grateful that she did flexibility training as well as strength training.

She huffed out a laugh and turned her head to the side.

"Say it," he insisted, anxious to smooth that pained wrinkle from between her eyebrows. "I want you. Say it, or I'll stop right now." Of course, he wasn't honestly sure that he could do that, but for her, he'd try.

Her gaze snapped back to his. "I want you," she said evenly, a familiar stubborn angle to her jaw.

Of course. Of course she'd call his bluff. He summoned every bit of strength he had as well as some he hadn't known about, and pulled out of her body. His own body howled in protest. "You know that's not what I mean. Say it, Brienne."

Her teeth sank into her lip; her eyes were wide and wild. "Jaime--"

He leaned down to capture her mouth in a searing kiss, trying to prove it to her with teeth and tongue. Then he pressed more open-mouthed kisses to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, wondering if it would be easier for her if she didn't have to look at him. "Say it," he murmured against her skin. "Please."

"You--" she started, but when she didn't continue, he held his hips away from her, and she slammed her free heel against the bed in frustration. She tried to tilt her own hips up, to chase after him, but she was at the wrong angle and he was too heavy for her to shift with one leg still bent over his shoulder. 

"I want you so much," he told her, dizzy with it, kissing her nipple, her collarbone, the tip of her chin. "I want to be inside you, I need it, just say it, Brienne, please, for the gods' sake, _say it--_ "

"All right!" she snapped, eyes shiny as she pounded a fist against his shoulder. "You want me, all right? I believe you. You want me. Now--" and the rest of her words were lost as he drove into her so hard that they both cried out.

What little finesse he'd had was gone now, shredded by the need to bury himself in her again and again, to hear her heaving breaths and feel her hands tight on his shoulders as they moved together, taste her sweat on his tongue. He was dangerously close to his climax, pleasure sizzling up his spine and lighting all his nerve endings, and could only pray to every god old and new that she was closer as he snaked a hand down between them to rub at her clit.

"Jaime," she moaned when he touched her, louder than he'd heard her before, louder than when she'd come the first time. "Gods, Jaime, _yes_ , please, like that, yes, so good," so he hung on desperately, giving her everything he had. When she convulsed around him again, her generous mouth falling open, he almost sobbed in relief and let the bright wave overtake him.

Afterward, he stayed slumped over her, thrilled not to have to worry about crushing her as the world slowly trickled back in, marked by the velvet feel of all her skin against his. She was stroking his hair again, lifting the strands until they slid through her fingers, then scooping up more to repeat the motion. It was the most relaxed he'd felt in as long as he could remember--maybe ever--and he made a sleepy noise against the wing of her collarbone and snuggled closer.

Her chest shook with a small laugh. "Jaime."

"Mmm?"

"Condom," she reminded him.

"Mmm," he said again, grumpily this time, but he moved off of her, out of her, pulling a small gasp from both of them as he withdrew. He stripped off the condom and tossed it in the trash, though he almost missed his shot thanks to the fantastically distracting sight of her stretching and dragging herself out of bed to the bathroom, her freckled skin marked by his hands and teeth.

When she came back, he was waiting for her, sitting up against the headboard with the sheet loose around his hips and a refilled glass of champagne in each hand. He'd dimmed the lights and cracked the curtains, and her grin was wide and delighted in the faint glow of the street lights outside as she climbed in next to him.

"Am I allowed to drink now?" he asked her, his tone as dry as he could make it given that he was stupidly happy and having trouble hiding it.

She took one glass and gave him an elaborate sigh, which was significantly undermined by the sparkle in her eye that put the champagne to shame. "I suppose." They clinked glasses again, and this time it was her turn to gulp, head tipped back and throat moving until the glass was empty.

He couldn't help but notice, though, that she'd pulled the sheet up under her arms; when she turned back from setting her glass down on the nightstand, she clucked her tongue at him. "Don't give me that look. This--" and she nodded at the sheet--"is because I'm cold, not because of… what you're thinking."

"Then come here and get warm," he said, setting his own glass aside and sliding down until his head was on the pillow. He held out his arm to her, and she curled up against his side, chin resting on his shoulder, nose tucked against his cheek, fingertips drawing aimless patterns in the hair on his chest. He dragged her top leg across both of his, hungry for all the contact he could get.

After a short silence, she started speaking, her voice smaller than he would have thought possible coming out of someone who loomed so large to him in every way. "When I was a teenager, in school, I wasn't… the boys weren't exactly lining up."

Jaime winced, imagining her taller and stronger and smarter than all of them, nothing soft about her except her heart--which most teenaged boys, being idiots, probably wouldn't have looked long enough to notice. Jaime himself might not have noticed, if he hadn't met her skill before he'd met her. Not that he'd ever claimed to not be an idiot. 

He stroked her thigh, hoping to soothe her.

"But then I joined the lacrosse team," she went on. "The boys' lacrosse team, since it was a small school and we didn't have a girls' team. They were, of course… not thrilled. But then I scored the winning goal in the second game, and after that, some of them started being nice to me. Meeting me after school, walking me to class, that sort of thing. I thought…" She shook her head a little, at least as well as she could with it pressed against him, and huffed out a breath. "Well. Long story short, it turned out they'd made a bet. First one to get me to sleep with him got the pool. I found out because one of them, Ron, tried to ask me out after practice and couldn't get through it. Just cracked up laughing right in the middle of his sentence. That set them all off, of course."

Something was burning in the center of Jaime's torso, so hot he could hardly breathe; he wanted to tear through time and beat the shit out of every last one of those worthless little assholes. "Ron?" he asked calmly. "What's his last name? Do you have his address?"

She snorted a laugh into his neck. "Jaime."

"What? I just want to talk to him." Even his toes wanted to clench into fists.

She laughed again, but she settled closer to him, and he curved his arm tighter around her back, buried his burned fingers in her hair. "Anyway," she said. "It hasn't always been quite like that, but at the end of the day, that's essentially what it's been like. So that's why…" She trailed off. "Anyway, that's why."

He tilted his head to press a kiss to her forehead. "For whatever it's worth--I meant what I said, you know. I've wanted you since the first night I met you. Even before I really understood why. Even when you were driving me crazy." He chuckled. "Especially then, actually. I'd never met anyone like you, and that was before I even knew all the incredible things that you are."

Up close, he could almost taste the flush on her cheeks. "Wow. I knew my cioppino was good, but even I didn't know it was that powerful."

He laughed outright at that. "I was as surprised as anyone, believe me. I thought I was looking for a chef. Little did I know I'd find a sea witch with eyes like the ocean who could toss me around like driftwood."

She snorted and hid her face in the curve where his neck met his shoulder. "Oh, please." Then she peeked up at him. "I could toss you around more, though, if you like it." He raised an eyebrow, and her grin was wicked before it was distorted by a cavernous yawn. "Tomorrow, though. I'm exhausted."

"Me too," he agreed. He settled deeper into the pillows. "Watching you kick everyone's ass was _work_ , let me tell you."

"Hmm, I bet." Then, just as he was starting to slide into sleep, she tugged a little on his hair to get his attention. "Before I forget, I meant to ask you--did you just pick macaroni and cheese because it would be easy for me to guess? Or is it really your favorite?"

He considered it, at least with as much of his sex- and sleep-fuzzed brain as was available. His first impulse really had been just to choose something that he could communicate without being too obtuse or too obvious. But there were probably lots of things he could have chosen that would have achieved the same purpose, and maybe there was a reason that he'd thought of her and thought of warmth. Comfort. Home.

He ran his down her back and smiled into the dimness. "It is now."

* * * * * * *

When the bedside alarm went off in the morning, he stretched across Brienne's body, yanked the clock out of the wall and tossed it on the floor.

"Jaime!" She reached behind her to smack sleepily at him. "It's not the clock's fault."

"That clock is my enemy," he told her, "and I've vanquished it in fair combat. Now come here and let me claim my reward." He gathered her back against him and nuzzled at the warm skin of her neck.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" she wondered, but he could feel her shaking with laughter. She squirmed around to face him; her hair was sticking up, her eyes were red-rimmed with lack of sleep, and she had a faint blue mark on her shoulder that was probably from his teeth. He could almost feel his heart leap out of his chest and settle directly into hers. "Good morning," she said, half-shy, leaning forward to kiss him.

"Mmm-hmm," he agreed against her mouth. 

"I don't have to be on set for another two hours," she told him when she pulled back.

He had to stop himself from holding a scandalized hand to his chest. The _betrayal_. "Then why the fuck would you set the alarm for now, you sadist?"

She snickered. "Because I've met you, and I knew the chances that we were going to leap right out of bed and be productive."

He considered being insulted, then considered the fact that she was warm and naked and his morning wood was presenting itself happily, ready to be of use. "Well," he said, giving her his best lazy smile as he moved toward her, "I have to admit, that's very--"

She stopped him with a hand on his chest. "Wait."

He groaned and dropped his head to her shoulder. "Brienne. It's much too early for torture."

"It's nine a.m.," she pointed out, "but also, here's the plan. We get up, brush our teeth, and then I'll meet you back in this bed in…" She pretended to consider. "Three minutes."

"Two and a half," he said, suddenly finding himself extremely motivated. 

He fished the toothbrush he'd snagged from the front desk out of his pants pocket, borrowed her toothpaste, and brushed his teeth as fast as humanly possible while she was bare, foam-mouthed, and giggling next to him. There was an easy domesticity to it that made his chest ache, and after they tumbled back into bed, he just stared at her for a minute, overwhelmed with everything he wanted to do to her.

"Jaime," she said suddenly, reaching out to trace a finger along his wrist. "What if… what if we didn't break up?"

"What?" Breaking up was, if not the actual last thing on his mind, at least several hundred items down. Several thousand, maybe.

"Before the finale. We were going to break up. But what if we just…" She lifted a shoulder. "Didn't?"

The obvious answer--that there was no way in this world or any other that she was getting rid of him now--hovered on his lips. He knew he probably couldn't deserve her, but he was selfish enough to want to try, and much too selfish to let her go at this point. On the other hand, though, he knew how much the competition meant to her, knew how hard she'd fought to prove herself on her own terms, and he didn't want to get in the way of that. "We pretended to date, we can pretend to break up," he pointed out. "Sneak around for a bit, then get back together sometime after your glorious victory and have sex on your big pile of cash."

She grinned at that. "As tempting as that is, it's just... for the finale, we're cooking for a crowd. It's too much work for one person, so we're each allowed to choose two assistants." All he could see were her eyes, huge and depthless. "I was hoping you might agree to be one of them."

Him. Cooking again. In front of an audience. With her dreams on the line. "Brienne, I--"

"I know you can do it," she said, cupping his face with both hands. "There's no one else I'd rather have up there with me." She gave him a hopeful half-smile. "Please?"

Objections crowded his mind--he was out of practice, he was damaged goods, he'd bias the judges against her--but with her here, next to him, close to him, looking at him like that, they all faded to a distant hum. "Like I said: sea witch," he grumbled, and she cackled up to the ceiling.

"I'm not sure if I like that more or less than _commis_ ," she mused, still grinning. "So is that a yes?"

He sighed. "You know it is. May all the gods help me."

"Good." She didn't actually clap her hands, but it was heavily implied in her expression. "And I didn't even try to fuck you into agreeing with me, unlike some people I could mention." 

The fact that she was joking about that now made the ache in his chest seem to crack open, releasing a flood of sweetness. He shook his head. "Oh, no, I fully expect that's how we're going to be resolving all arguments from now on. In fact, I'm writing a new contract for it as a condition of this agreement." 

"Then in that case…" And she schooled her face into seriousness, though her eyes were dancing. "Jaime, I know you don't think we should break up like we very clearly outlined weeks ago, but I disagree."

"Ah." He moved closer to her, curving his hand over her hip. "Well, that's very disappointing to hear. I guess I have no choice but to convince you otherwise."

"You're certainly welcome to try," she said, and he swallowed her laugh in a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An important tag to this chapter: when I first sent it to SD Wolfpup for beta, I was texting her that I was not initially really planning on Brienne telling Jaime about the absolute jerkasses of her past here, but then it just kind of seemed like the thing to do, so I was like, well, I guess we're going to Feelingstown. And I was asking SDW if she thought that worked, and she texted back, "Listen. Jaime Lannister is always ready to go to Feelingstown. He's the mayor of it." 
> 
> And that is how Jaime gained a glorious new title in the world and why my predictive text now suggests "Feelingstown" all the time and it's amazing.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I…" Brienne looked around the coffee shop, the familiar brick walls and posters for local events, the mismatched tables and chairs. She felt like she'd been gone for months, like there was a fine veil between her and everything she used to know. "I don't know what I am, honestly," she said with a bemused chuckle._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like it's only fair to warn you all that this chapter ends on a cliffhanger, so if you don't like cliffhangers, you might be happier holding off until the next update. Thanks, as always, to SD Wolfpup, who patiently helped me through multiple iterations of this chapter as well as the following one. She is the best!

"Brieeeeeee!" As soon as Brienne walked in the door to the coffee shop, Margaery shot up from her seat and darted across the room, launching herself at Brienne with abandon.

Brienne staggered as she caught her friend's flying leap, barely managing to keep them from tumbling on their asses and taking at least a couple of the spindly tables with them. Margaery, apparently unconcerned, wrapped all four limbs around her and squeezed.

"Hi," Brienne managed, laughing and squeezing back, part of her embarrassed at the scene they were making but a much larger part warmed to the core by the welcome. Podrick, busy with a line of customers, nevertheless stopped what he was doing to give her an excited wave, which she returned as well as she could given her armful of enthusiastic Tyrell.

When Margaery pulled back, her smile was wide and gleeful, and she leaned in to give Brienne a smacking kiss on the lips. 

"Welcome back to the world! I missed you so much and I'm so proud of you and you're totally going to win and oh my gods, that dude is so into you it's _fantastic_."

Brienne laughed again and let Margaery's legs slide down to the ground. "I missed you, too," she said. "You have no idea how much. I'm sorry I didn't call more."

Margaery waved a hand as she led the way to their usual table. Two mugs were steaming there already. "Don't worry about it. I know how busy you were." When she turned to sit down, she had an elegant eyebrow arched. "I mean, I don't know the details, but based on how you two were eyefucking each other for basically that entire episode, I'm really hoping you're going to tell me. And when I say details, I mean _details_."

"Keep it in your pants, Margaery," Brienne sighed, grinning.

"Never," Margaery vowed. She took a sip of her coffee. "So how long do you get before you're supposed to report back?"

"A week," Brienne answered. They'd stayed quarantined for the week until the semi-final episode had aired, but now that there was no more need to guard against spoilers, they'd all been released into the wild until they reconvened for the live finale. 

Margaery stretched a hand across the table to rest it on Brienne's forearm. "How are you feeling about it? Are you nervous?"

"Terrified," Brienne admitted. "I…" She looked around the coffee shop, the familiar brick walls and posters for local events, the mismatched tables and chairs. She felt like she'd been gone for months, like there was a fine veil between her and everything she used to know. "I don't know what I am, honestly," she said with a bemused chuckle.

The smile Margaery gave her was gentle. "I don't blame you. A lot happened in the last few weeks, and that's just the stuff I know about. And even if a lot of it's been good, I can see where it would be pretty overwhelming."

"That's the thing!" Brienne lowered her voice and leaned forward, grateful for Margaery's perceptiveness--that, at least, felt the same as ever. "It's all been so good! But it's all been _so much_. I mean, Catelyn Stark called me brilliant! And I've somehow become a person who can forget that there are at least three cameras trained on me at all times, and I use words like 'mic pack' in daily conversation, and I think Tormund and Daenerys and I might actually be friends, and when I woke up in my apartment yesterday, I couldn't figure out why the window in my hotel room was suddenly behind the bed instead of across from it." In her half-awake state, Jaime's steady breathing had anchored her, but it had unmoored her, too, when she'd turned over to watch the soft morning light slip over his face, highlighting his sharp cheekbones, his long eyelashes, the beginnings of crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. Frankly, he had a lot of nerve looking as handsome as he did, even with his mouth slack with sleep.

She'd wanted to wake him up with a kiss, but that particular spell hadn't been one she'd wanted to break, so she'd just watched him, until his eyelids had fluttered open on their own and then… well. Apparently, no matter where they were sleeping, he was perfectly happy to find himself at home between her legs.

"Brienne Tarth. You are actually having a sex flashback in front of me right now. You _hussy_." Margaery sounded scandalized, and delighted to be so. "And here I was trying to keep things professional."

Brienne could feel her ears getting hot; she caught the edge of her guilty grin between her teeth. "Sorry."

"No, you're not," Margaery laughed. "But if you don't spill, I may have to _make_ you sorry."

Brienne covered her face with her hands. "I don't even know where to start."

"Start with the sex," Margaery commanded. "Obviously."

"Well." Brienne took a steadying sip of the latte in front of her; the hint of caramel sweetness soothed her, not so much for the flavor itself but for the reminder of how well her friends knew her. "You know we'd been… talking."

"Mmm-hmmm," Margaery said, heavy with implication.

"And then after we filmed the competition part of the last episode, he came to my room that night, and he… kind of didn't leave? At least not until they let us all go yesterday." 

_"I've been waiting weeks to get my hands on you,_ commis, _I'm not leaving this room unless you kick me out,"_ had been his exact words. _"Come on, let's play house for this week. You go to work, and I'll have dinner waiting when you come home. Unless, of course, you want to tie me to the bed to make sure I don't get into any trouble while you're gone."_ He'd said that last with a wicked grin, stretching bare arms above his head as he lay sprawled out among the pillows.

She hadn't taken him up on that. Well, not exactly. Not for the whole day, anyway.

"Brienne!" Margaery snapped her fingers in front of Brienne's eyes. "Stay with me, honey. We're here now. In this coffee shop. Where there is, regrettably, no sex with ridiculously attractive rich scoundrels who clearly adore you."

Brienne laughed again at that. "Jaime isn't a scoundrel, as much as he'd like people to believe he is. He's…" She paused, considering. "When it comes down to it, he acts according to his heart, rather than his head, and that's not always the easiest thing, for him or for the people around him. But," and now she smiled down at her mug, her fingers curled against its warmth. "It's such a good heart, Margaery."

"So you're telling me," Margaery said, eyes welling up, "that he's built like a god, he sexed you for a week straight, he's excited to cook for you, he looks at you like you're the Maiden come to life, _and_ he's a good guy? That contrary to all my long and painful experience, someone like that actually exists?"

Brienne wrinkled her nose; she hadn't intended to rub it in that Margaery was currently single. "Sorry."

"I'm not," Margaery declared. "I'm so fucking _happy_ for you," and she pulled her chair over to Brienne's side of the table and threw her arms around her. "You deserve this," she murmured fiercely into Brienne's shoulder. "And if he hurts you, I'll sacrifice his balls to the Warrior."

Brienne burst into watery laughter. "If it comes to that, I'll do it myself," she said. "But I very much appreciate the offer." She clutched Margaery harder for a few seconds, then released her, using her thumbs to wipe the tears from her friend's face, careful not to smear her mascara. "Hey, I wanted to ask you something."

"Okay, if you tell me you're getting married, I'm going to fucking explode into confetti all over this coffee shop, and then you're going to have to clean it up," Margaery warned.

"No! What? I'm not. We just. _No_ ," Brienne stammered, though dammit, now she had that image in her head--her dad at her side, Jaime in a tuxedo, both of them beaming at her--and it was terrifyingly appealing. _Stay here, in this coffee shop_ , she commanded her imagination, and she reached down to take Margaery's hand. "No. What I wanted to say was… the finale. We're cooking for a group, and we get to choose two people to help us. I already asked Jaime, and he said yes, so that's one. And I'm hoping…" She peered at Margaery through her lashes. "I'm hoping you'll agree to be the second one."

Margaery's jaw dropped and her porcelain skin went pink. "Brie, I… I don't have any formal training, you know that. You should ask Renly, or even Loras--this is too important, I don't want to fuck anything up for you."

"The fact that it's important is exactly why I'm asking you," Brienne told her. "You're my best friend, Marge. And not only that, but you're extremely talented, you're amazing under pressure, you're creative, you always make me laugh when I need it, and you always calm me down when I'm freaking out. You've been with me every step of the way, succeed or fail, for years." She gripped Margaery's hand more tightly. "I don't want to succeed or fail in this unless you're with me there, too."

"Why didn't I wear waterproof mascara today?" Margaery sniffled, tears overflowing now.

Brienne was feeling pretty sniffly herself. "Will you do it?"

"Yes, of course I'll do it, how the hell am I supposed to say no to that?" Margaery said, and then they were hugging again.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything, but this seemed like it might be an occasion for these?" That was Podrick, who had appeared next to their table with a plate full of colorful macarons.

"Yes! We are celebrating. Not only do we have our beloved Brienne back, but I just agreed to have a threesome with her and Jaime Lannister on national TV," Margaery told him, grabbing a macaron. Podrick's mouth worked soundlessly as he tried to formulate a response to that.

"That is extremely not what happened," Brienne clarified before he could flee right back behind the counter. "What actually happened is that Margaery is going to come cook with me for the finale."

"Really?" Podrick's broad smile quickly outshone his embarrassment as he looked back and forth between the two of them. "That's fantastic!"

"Will you come too?" Brienne asked him. Then, reading the plain terror on his face, she hurriedly added, "Not to cook, though I'm looking forward to the day you realize just how good you are. This time around, I was thinking you could come just to be in the crowd, eat some food, have some fun, maybe meet some people. We're allowed to invite a few guests of our own, and it would mean a lot to me to have you there."

"It would?" Podrick asked, and his smile grew even wider somehow, lit by a blush that went all the way down to his neck. "Of--of course. I'd love to be there."

"Excellent," Brienne said, and leaned back in her chair with a macaron, feeling sunnily pleased with herself and the entire world. She was even more pleased when she bit into the macaron and found it just the right mixture of crisp and chewy, with a surprisingly dense snap in the middle instead of the usual slide of buttercream. "Is this white chocolate ganache in here?"

"Yes, Chef," Podrick answered, watching her reaction carefully, hands twisting in his apron. "And lime and coconut in the meringue. I figured that since everyone confuses macarons and macaroons anyway, why not combine them a little?"

"It's perfect. Perfect balance, perfect texture, perfect." Around her mouthful of macaron, Brienne gave him her broadest smile. "I'm telling you, when you realize how much talent you've got, you're going to be unstoppable."

"Thank you, Chef," Podrick mumbled toward the floor; the sides of his neck were still red.

"We're not in a kitchen, Pod, it's Brienne," she reminded him, still grinning.

"Yes, Chef," he answered, and when he looked back up at her, his nose was wrinkled and he was grinning, too, sharing the joke with her, and Brienne was so happy in that moment that for once she was grateful to be so much bigger than most people, or else she wasn't sure she'd be able to contain it all.

"Well," Pod sighed, eyeing the customer who was approaching the counter, "I'd better get back to work. Welcome back, Chef."

"Thank you, I'm glad to be back." When Brienne turned back from watching him go, she saw that Margaery was watching him, too, a faintly speculative look on her face. "What's that look about?" Brienne asked.

Margaery blinked and then grinned. "Nothing. Just wondering if I could fit him in my pocket, is all. Anyway," she went on before Brienne could press her on that, "what are you up to the rest of the day? Want to hit happy hour with me later?"

"I'd love to, but Jaime and I are going out tonight and I have to try to make myself presentable. Rain check?" Brienne said hopefully. 

"Ooh." Margaery lowered her voice. "Is this your first real, actual date?"

"Yes," Brienne confessed, equally quietly. Not that she really suspected anyone would be hanging around in the coffee shop looking to break the story of her once-fake relationship, but it didn't hurt to be cautious. "I would've been perfectly happy to stay in, but Jaime insisted--he said we'd been cooped up in that room all week and he wanted to 'take me out on the town,' because apparently we're in a black and white movie." She'd rolled her eyes when he'd said it, but the way he'd raised an annoyingly charming eyebrow at her as he'd asked had made her heart flutter in spite of herself.

"Oh gods, he's _romancing_ you. After you already had a lot of sex, even!" That part was less quiet, and Brienne dropped her head into her hands. 

"I'm sorry," Margaery went on, giggling. "This is exciting, okay? And you have to let me live vicariously through you, those are the rules. But here, I'll make it up to you: we're going shopping, and then I'm offering myself as your personal hair and makeup consultant for the evening." 

Brienne squinted at her; on one hand, if she accepted, there would be a lot more discussion of Brienne's sex life along the way, she was pretty sure. On the other hand, she'd missed Margaery terribly, and she didn't hate having a sex life to discuss for once, even if she'd rather not be updating everyone in their vicinity at the same time. Plus, she had no idea what she was going to wear. 

"That sounds amazing," she agreed. "Only if you'll let me buy you something as a thank-you."

"Since you're about to be rich beyond our wildest imaginings, I'll take you up on that." Margaery grinned, and when they stood up, she threaded her arm through Brienne's. "Okay, so, first question for my vicarious life: how big are we talking? Give me some vegetable comparisons. Are we talking pickle? Banana?"

"Well, this was a mistake," Brienne groaned as they made their way across the shop.

"What? Cucumber? Oh, gods, eggplant?"

"Margaery!" Brienne shouted, plugging her ears, though not fast enough that she couldn't hear her friend's laughter.

*****

With Margaery and her makeup kit gone with a parting "don't do anything I wouldn't do, so, you know, do whatever you want," and Jaime due to arrive in about fifteen minutes, Brienne sat gingerly on her bed and did her best not to mess up any of Margaery's hard work. 

While she was waiting, her eyes drifted over her bookshelves, a familiar oasis in her quickly-changing world. When she was a child, Brienne had pored over heroic myths and legends; as a teenager, she'd hidden her romance novels under her bed, worried that her dad would find them and want to have The Talk with her even though it was painfully unnecessary. Along the way, she'd filled more than one journal with her hopes for her own future, all daring deeds and dashing companions. 

As an adult, her bookshelf was still stuffed with epic adventures and swoonworthy love stories, and she'd come to consider herself a connoisseur of romantic comedies, but her dreams had transformed into something decidedly more mundane and practical. The dragon she'd wanted to slay had been the fact that she was living paycheck to paycheck in constant fear of how she was going to pay her rent; her raging river to ford had been proving her place in a competitive, unforgiving, and relentlessly misogynist industry. Romance had, as ever, been something that happened to other people, and after holding Margaery's hand and hair as she sobbed and drank her way through breakup after breakup, Brienne couldn't help but think that fiction seemed much safer anyway.

Then an arrogant, golden-haired prince had barged into her kitchen, and now, just a couple of months later, she found herself here: on the threshold of a chance for a heroic victory, and waiting for him to come woo her in the meantime. Of course, her prince could also be moody and entitled and stubborn and rash, but the more time she spent with him, the more she saw that he was also kind, and silly, and passionate, and deeply caring, and--

A knock on the door made her jump. _Early. He's also early_ , she thought, checking the clock and seeing that there were still at least five minutes before the hour.

She was on the verge of flinging open the door when caution caught up to her and she peered through the peep-hole instead. He was adorably distorted by the fish-eye glass, mostly forehead and nose, and so she was laughing when she opened the door.

"You're early."

He didn't respond right away, eyes sweeping over her from head to toe. _You eat with your eyes first_ , she couldn't help thinking, because that was exactly what he seemed intent on doing. 

Brienne and Margaery had agreed that Brienne should look like the best version of herself, but still undeniably herself. So Margaery had raked some sort of product through her hair that had created artfully tousled waves from her usual nest of straw, and used shimmery bronze and champagne tones in her makeup to give a warm glow to her skin and make her eyes stand out even more. 

They'd found a turquoise halter-top dress that showed off her shoulders and back and a significant part of her sternum, then tapered in to give her the illusion of a waist before falling in a full skirt that ended just at her knees. Brienne hadn't been completely sure about that--on the rare occasions that she wore dresses, she normally liked them to hit at least at mid-calf--but Margaery's jaw had dropped when Brienne had come out of the dressing room, and Jaime had certainly spent his share of time admiring her legs with his words as well as his tongue, so Brienne had decided she'd risk it. The shoes that Margaery had found helped too, a pair of pretty gold wedge sandals that brought out the length and definition of her leg muscles without leaving her tottering for balance.

From the look on Jaime's face, Margaery's efforts had paid off.

"I got tired of waiting," he said after a long moment, half wondering, half heated, "and looking at you, I was absolutely right."

She wondered if she'd ever be able to stop blushing around him. "Well, you look unfairly dashing--as you well know." His suit was a deep, vivid sapphire blue that could easily have looked ridiculous, but instead just drew the eye to him, bringing out the malachite glints in his eyes and the honey glow of his hair. He was wearing a black shirt with no tie, the top button undone to leave a tantalizing glimpse of the hollow at the base of his neck.

He smiled, though there was the slightest twist at the edges of it that she didn't know how to read. "It's always nice to hear it from you, _commis_." He slipped a hand behind her neck and stepped close to kiss her, rising up on his toes to close the height gap that her heels had only exaggerated. He didn't seem to mind, though, given that the kiss was scorching and urgent almost from the jump, his tongue stroking deeply against hers, his hand sliding down the bare expanse of her back to mold her close against him, close enough to feel the hard length of him against her thigh. For a few heady seconds she could feel them teetering on the brink of missing their reservation entirely, and she wouldn't have been able to bring herself to care, but then he gentled his grip and pulled his mouth away from hers so that he could press soft kisses on her collarbone and the exposed skin of her shoulders.

Brienne shivered and let herself lean against his solid heat, still wondering at the fact that she could just _do_ that now, anytime she wanted. Fiction was safer, certainly, but she was coming to suspect that there were much, much better things than safety.

"Do you have any idea," Jaime murmured against her skin, "what it feels like to know that I can make a woman like you tremble at my touch?"

 _A woman like you_ was a phrase she was used to hearing in a distinctly less reverent tone. She slipped her fingers into the soft hair at the back of his neck. "That's only because I'm cold," she managed, teasing.

He scraped his teeth over her collarbone. "Not from where I'm standing, you aren't."

When he leaned back, he inhaled and exhaled slowly, seeming more settled than he had a minute ago. "Hi," he said.

She chuckled. "Hi. It's good to see you."

"You too," he said. "Are you sure you don't just want to go back to the hotel after dinner? Tell the rest of the world to fuck off for the week? I'm worried that room service will go out of business without us." 

Although he said it lightly, there was a shadow over it somehow, enough to have Brienne's brow furrowing. Before she could ask him if there was something more going on, her stomach growled; she hadn't eaten since the macaron Pod had given her. At the noise, Jaime shook himself a little and grinned, the shadow falling away like it had never been there.

"And that's my cue. We've got to keep your strength up if you're going to destroy Daenerys in single combat." He offered her his arm. "My lady?"

Despite the number of times he'd called her that, Brienne had still never learned to accept it without at least a small eye-roll to hedge against the fear that he was secretly mocking her. But his gaze on her now was warm and affectionate and open, and so, swallowing hard, she inclined her head to him and tucked her arm through his with a genuine smile. His own smile widened and his face lit up, and she flung a mental message in a bottle back in time to little Brienne, sitting on her bed with her books clutched close: _Don't give up. Your time will come._

* * * * * * *

The restaurant Jaime had picked was, as Brienne had requested, "medium nice," since she was too distracted and nervous for anything more than that. Though Jaime had insisted she agree to let him upgrade them to somewhere "revoltingly fancy" if ( _when_ , he persisted in saying, despite her warnings about jinxes) she won. In any case, _Mozussin Se Enva Gimissin_ was one of the popular spots in town that Brienne had read about but had never felt fabulous enough to go to; the restaurant half specialized in unique cocktails and Essos-inspired small plates, while the bar next door offered upscale pizza and weekly trivia nights.

"This is beautiful," Brienne said, looking around as Jaime pulled out her chair for her. The decor was all burnished golds and repeated angular blue and red patterns, illuminated by soft candlelight. 

"The food is even better," Jaime promised her. "And I thought Essosi might be appropriate, in the name of knowing your enemy."

"Right now all I want to know is what drink I'm getting." Brienne scanned the cocktail menu. Right away, she could rule out the _Dracarys_ , which involved dragon pepper, and the _Valar Morghulis_ , which contained no less than seven different types of alcohol. "Seven help us. Has anyone actually died from any these?" she wondered, and Jaime laughed.

"You know how it is, _commis_ \--they have to have some options specifically aimed at the ones who come in here looking to prove their manhood. Fortunately," and he gave her what could only be described as a medium-nice leer, "I've already done that twice today."

"I suppose you have," she answered, maintaining a bored tone even though she knew she was flushing pink, which just made him laugh louder.

Eventually she settled on the _Tubī Daor_ \--a gin drink with a house-made herbal liqueur, lime juice, and a spiced cherry liqueur--while Jaime chose the _Dēmalion Āegenko_ , which involved whiskey and house-made cardamom syrup, and arrived spiked with multiple steel cocktail swords, each impaling a clove-studded twist of lemon peel. After they ordered, Jaime excused himself to go to the restroom, so she happily sampled both of their drinks while he was gone and was studying the food menu with a pleasant alcohol glow in her chest when he came back to the table and grabbed her hand.

"What?" she said as he tugged her to her feet.

"Just come here," he insisted, glee written plainly on his face, so she tucked her clutch into her free hand and let him pull her over to the wall that divided the restaurant from the bar. 

There were tall, narrow windows that looked into the other space, and through them she could see laughing patrons, scurrying servers, pool tables, and TVs lining the walls. Many of the TVs were showing various different sports, but, following Jaime's pointing finger, she could see her own face on one of them, sweaty and bright red from exertion, nerves, and the heat of the kitchen.

 _Oh_ , she thought, feeling like she was watching from a great distance. "Must be a slow sports night," she offered, her voice sounding weak in her own ears.

Jaime wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, and she felt the ground solidify a bit beneath her feet. He tipped his chin up to rest it on her shoulder. "Shut up," he said in her ear. "My favorite show is on."

The re-run was almost over, and she watched her face light up with stunned excitement when they announced her as a finalist, watched Jaime practically climb over the table to hug her, while the Jaime currently standing behind her held her closer and kissed her neck. "I'm so fucking proud of you," he told her fiercely, and she closed her hands over his.

After the credits rolled and faded into a commercial break, she was ready to get back to their abandoned table and try to process the incredibly strange experience of catching a glimpse of her past self while out in the wild. But then an entertainment news segment came on, and she was shocked to see an image of herself pop up on the screen, soon followed by an image of Jaime that appeared next to hers.

"Are they…" She couldn't quite wrap her brain around it. She didn't love the picture of herself, either; it was clearly taken from the show, and she looked, well, _harried_ was probably the kindest way to put it. "Are they gossiping about _us_?" She'd been avoiding all of the media surrounding the show as much as possible, figuring that it could only distract her, and it seemed like she'd been right to do so.

She could feel Jaime tense behind her, and then another image appeared on the other side of his: Cersei, looking effortlessly glamorous on some red carpet, wearing her wild mane of golden hair and a clingy dress that showed tantalizing hints of transparency.

Brienne may not have been able to hear what the newscaster was saying, but looking at her own picture next to Cersei's, it wasn't difficult to guess. The fact that Jaime's picture was from the gala--where Brienne knew there had been pictures of her, too, and pictures of the two of them together--made it even clearer what they were getting at. _One of these things is not like the other._

Behind her, Jaime had gone as rigid as a statue. "Brienne," he said urgently, "fuck them, it's all--"

"Bullshit, I know." She forced a laugh. "I wonder how they're spinning it; the prince dallying with a dirty commoner, do you think? Or am I just another woman digging for Lannister gold?" She was suddenly afraid to turn around, worried that she'd find everyone in the restaurant smothering grins at her thinking that any of this--this night, this dream, this man--could be for her.

At that, Jaime spun her around, his face tight with tension. She could tell he wanted to kiss her, but he obviously realized that would draw attention, so he just snatched one of her hands in both of his and pressed it to his lips, hard enough that she could feel the rapid huffs of breath out of his nose. "Fuck this place, too," he said. "I'll take you anywhere you want to go, just name it."

She thought of her pretty golden-green drink, back at the table; thought of how sour it would taste now. "Can we just go home?" She knew it was cowardice, and knew he'd be disappointed, but no matter where they went, she'd have unfamiliar eyes on her, and she'd be wondering what they were seeing, what they'd heard. Her skin felt raw.

Jaime nodded jerkily. "Whatever you want." Without another word, he led her out of the restaurant, tossing a few bills on their table as they went by. He'd never even gotten to taste his own drink. Brienne vowed she'd make sure he got to try one someday.

He'd driven them himself, rather than having his driver do it; she watched the grim line of his jaw in the shifting city lights as he navigated them back toward her apartment. She hadn't specified his place or hers, and she was grateful that he'd chosen the direction that he had; she needed as much equilibrium as she could get. She put a tentative hand on his thigh.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I know you wanted to--"

He wrenched the steering wheel to the side, pulling them out of traffic and leaving an angry squeal of tires behind him as the other cars swerved to compensate for the sudden change. Ignoring them, he grabbed her face between his hands and pulled her in for a searing kiss. "I wanted to be with you," he said when he pulled back. "I don't care where we go, or don't go. All right?" 

She didn't answer in words, just yanked him back in for another kiss, trying to pour all of her adrenaline and confused feelings into the press of lips and tongues. When she sat back against her seat, some of the aching tension in the car seemed to have drained away, and he chuckled a little as he flicked on his turn signal. "Is that what this thing is for?"

"I'm driving next time," she told him dryly.

"I'm sorry, but that thing you drive is much more dangerous than me not using my turn signals," he said, and they both laughed, and things shifted a tiny step toward normal, or what passed for normal for them, anyway.

When they got back to her apartment, she kicked off her shoes and he shed his suit jacket and they drank wine out of mismatched glasses while they scavenged for dinner. She had tomato soup in the freezer, courtesy of an overabundant local harvest, and she pulled that out to defrost in the microwave while he laid generous slices of cheese and paper-thin fans of apple onto fresh potato bread, slathered the outsides with butter and slipped them into a hot pan. She peered over his shoulder to make sure he didn't burn the bread; he tasted the tomato soup, made a considering face, and tossed in an extra scattering of red pepper flakes. They fed bites to each other while standing at the counter, snickering through wine-stained lips at the gooey strings of cheese that stretched between them.

As soon as they were done eating, they stumbled to her room, and he laid her new dress carefully over a chair before backing her up to the bed, applying his hands and tongue with utterly single-minded focus as he brought her to a bone-melting orgasm, and then another, and another. He seemed fully prepared to go for four, but she gasped a curse and dragged him up her body, then flipped him on his back and sank down onto him. She was so wet and slick that he slid inside with just one thrust, so swollen that they both groaned at the sensation. Since she was on birth control and they'd both tested negative for STDs, they'd agreed that morning that they could skip condoms in the future; she was grateful for that discussion now, not wanting anything between them as she rode him in a desperate rhythm and he clutched her hips and ass hard enough to leave marks. _Mine_ , she thought fiercely, watching the flash of his eyes in the dim light, the sheen of sweat on his shoulders, the shape of his mouth as she pushed him beyond control. And when he stiffened and poured into her, he yanked her down for another sloppy kiss and, though maybe it was just wishful thinking, she could have sworn he growled the exact same word into her mouth.

Curled up with him afterward, limbs weak and eyes gritty with exhaustion, she still found herself unable to sleep. No matter how she tried to distract herself, she couldn't shake the image of Jaime, golden and beautiful next to the golden and beautiful woman he'd known for most of his life, the one he never talked about even though he rarely shut up about anything. And sure, he was with Brienne right now, his chest rising and falling underneath her cheek and his taste lingering on her tongue, but how much of that was because they'd spent most of their time together behind closed doors, shut away from the outside world? They couldn't spend their lives in that bubble, and right now, it felt as fragile as spun sugar.

 _I think I might have spoken too soon, little Brienne_ , she thought, and huffed out a tiny, rueful laugh while tears burned the backs of her eyes. She suddenly remembered that same little Brienne finding a scattering of flowers along the forest floor, looking like a fairy had dropped them there in the middle of some adventure. Their broad, bright petals had fascinated her, and she'd dug one up and brought it home, cradling it in her hands. She'd found a pot for it, tucked it in with fresh soil, watered it faithfully, and given it a place of honor on her windowsill, where it could bask in the summer sun.

Within five days, it had died. 

When she'd brought the withered plant to her dad, crying, he'd wrapped her in a bear hug and then settled her on his knee, even though she was getting too big for that already. "Not all flowers like the sun, little star," he'd told her, and though the affectionate nickname had warmed her even through her tears, she'd still felt betrayed, that she'd followed all the rules she knew and still failed. 

Brienne had been well into adulthood before she'd even attempted gardening again.

Which was why, when Jaime showed up at her door the night before the finale looking haggard and guilty and disheveled, and said, "Brienne, I don't know how to tell you this--I can't tell you how sorry I am--but I can't be there tomorrow," there was a part of her that wasn't at all surprised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hides* I'm sorrryyyyyyy. It's all going to work out, I promise!
> 
> On a less angsty note, I spent waaaaaay too long coming up with cocktail names and ingredients for this chapter, lol. Brienne's drink (which translates, the internet tells me, to "not today") is based on a [Last Word](https://www.thespruceeats.com/last-word-cocktail-recipe-760095), which is my absolute favorite summer cocktail these days. Jaime's (the Iron Throne) is basically a cardamom twist on an Old Fashioned. The Valar Morghulis is intended to be something like a Long Island Iced Tea, because: death. 😂
> 
> The name of the bar translates to "I drink and I know things", which I know is not exactly a classic High Valyrian phrase, but it amused me too much to not take advantage of it. 😁


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There were two moments in his life that Jaime would remember in excruciating sensory detail until the day he died: the feel of uncontrolled flames licking at his hand and arm, and the look on Brienne's face when he told her he couldn't be there for her._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting a day early because I felt bad about the cliffhanger! 😂 (I truly appreciate y'all being emotionally invested. ❤️ I made myself very sad, writing the sad parts of this, if that helps at all!) It is going to get a bit worse before it gets better, but. It will get better!
> 
> From an expectations-management perspective, just an FYI: the next chapter after this one is the longest of any of them, and then the following chapter is just a short epilogue, so. (Still tracking at about 65K, if anyone wants to get mathy about it.) We're in the home stretch! I really hope you enjoy what's left!
> 
> And thank you again, some more, to SD Wolfpup for reading approximately a dozen rewrites of this chapter, heh. Hopefully I got it right in the end, but if not, it's entirely on me.

There were two moments in his life that Jaime would remember in excruciating sensory detail until the day he died: the feel of uncontrolled flames licking at his hand and arm, and the look on Brienne's face when he told her he couldn't be there for her.

Since the day he'd met her, he'd delighted in making her blush, and this was a devastating reversal of that, the blood draining from her face until she was ghostly pale, eyes standing out like bruises. "What do you mean?" she asked, and he could hear how hard she was working to keep her tone even. Her fingers were tight on the edge of the door; she hadn't stepped back to let him in.

He hesitated, but he wasn't going to lie to her on top of everything else. He gritted his teeth and forced it out. _This is for the best._ "Brienne, I... I have to go to Storm's End. Robert brought Cersei and the kids there--" and gods, her _face_ when he said Cersei's name--"for what he claimed was a family vacation while he went to a conference, and then, once they were there, he accused her of having an affair with me and said he's going to expose her and leave her with nothing in the divorce. She's devastated." He could still hear the desperation in Cersei's voice, the way the words had scraped out of a raw throat: _Please, Jaime. Please. You're the only one I can trust._ He'd been halfway out the door before he'd even stopped to think about it, a long-ingrained response to her distress. "Cersei doesn't… she doesn't make friends easily. She's on her own there, surrounded by his people, and she doesn't have anyone else to call."

He braced himself for her to cry, scream at him, maybe even hit him, but she just swallowed and nodded once. "I see." 

It was much more unsettling than if she'd done any of the things he'd anticipated. He scrambled to fill the awful, heavy silence.

"I stopped by the coffee shop and asked Podrick--he's willing to take my place, if you'll have him." Despite his obvious terror, the boy had agreed as soon as Jaime had explained the situation, though he did it with a glare that made Jaime think that in the future he should probably avoid ordering anything there that could be spit on or in. 

"All right." She was still painfully still on the surface, as if she thought she might break if she moved.

He couldn't help it; he reached for her. Immediately, she held her forearm up and across her body like a long, sharp blade to keep him at bay. "No. We're done with that now."

He'd known that was the likely end, and he'd thought he'd prepared himself for it, but it still sliced deep, deep enough that he lost his breath for a second. He let his own half-raised arm drop back to his side. "I'm going there as a friend, nothing more."

She snorted. "That's insulting to both of us. All of us, really. You don't make friends easily, either, and I might be an idiot, but even I'm not idiot enough to believe that's all she is to you, after all your time together."

"I don't want to be with her anymore." He doubted she'd believe it. He probably wouldn't, in her place. That didn't make it any less true.

"That's not the point," she gritted out. "The point is that you're making a choice, and the choice is her. As if you showing up there on your white horse is somehow going to make her husband _less_ convinced that you're having an affair." 

"That's exactly it, Brienne--I'm not white horse material!" he burst out. "You don't need me fucking this up for you. This way you'll get all the glory, just like we planned, without any tabloid fodder to distract people." And that was the true heart of it, Cersei or otherwise: all week, it had been gnawing at him like an infection, the moment when they'd been standing in that stupid restaurant and she'd gone from pleased and pliant in his arms to stiff and silent, her shoulders hunched in a way he'd hoped she'd left behind. He'd been overwhelmed with that now-familiar urge to destroy whoever had put that look on her face, except that this time, all he'd needed to do to find the culprit was look in the mirror. 

Because while Brienne might have been avoiding media about them, after they'd returned from the blissful, sex-filled bubble of her hotel room, he hadn't been able to resist indulging his own curiosity. And while he'd found the praise for her that he'd expected, as well as some enthusiasm for them as a couple, he'd also found the cruel whispers: the questions rearing their heads again of what had really happened with Aerys, of how much good Jaime could be to her in the finale with his mangled hand, and worst of all, if she could really be as good and true as she seemed to be if she'd voluntarily attached herself to the likes of the Kingslayer.

He'd let his own failures and infamy infect what should have been her triumph, all because he'd wanted to steal some of her light and warmth for himself. And no matter how tightly he held her or how many times he made her scream his name, it was nowhere near enough to balance the scales, and it was killing him.

On top of all that, there was the phone call he'd gotten the previous day, thanking him for helping create the generous Lannister Corp scholarship for the Institute of Culinary Excellence. Meaning that despite Jaime's efforts to keep himself anonymous, his father had found out anyway, and had promptly taken even Jaime's best, most altruistic intentions and twisted them to serve the Lannister machine. He hadn't even called Jaime to scold or sarcastically congratulate him, he'd just taken over and moved on, like he always did.

So while Jaime might have been able to eventually explain and atone and persuade away his own sordid past, there was still the inescapable reality that no matter where he went or what he did, Lannister greed and ruthlessness snaked around him like the many-armed monster that it was. At the end of the day, the simple fact was that there were leagues, and Brienne was out of his. As much as he'd tried to fool himself otherwise, he knew he was bound to fuck this up; it was in his blood. Cersei's call had given him the opportunity to do it before the damage spread further. 

"Oh, so this is chivalry, what you're doing here? This is for _my_ sake?" Brienne was asking, with half an incredulous laugh. "I mean, the actual chivalrous thing to do would be to grant me the dignity of letting me decide what's best for me, but why do that when you can just decide for me?"

His swallowed past the jagged lump in his throat. As it turned out, knowing down to his bones that she was better off without him, and actually letting her go--when she was standing right there in front of him and every cell in his body was straining toward her--were two entirely different things. But she _was_ better off, and the longer it took for her to realize that, the worse it would be for her when she finally did. "Brienne--" 

"Do you want me to tell you it's all right?" she burst out, and she was starting to crack now, her voice catching in her throat, the stunning blue of her eyes blurring. "Is that what you're waiting for? For me to give you _permission_? Because no matter why you're going or what you want from her, you're still leaving, when you said you'd be there, and I'm still going to have to stand up there, and know that you're--that everyone is--and I can't--" Her shoulders were heaving.

He couldn't stand it. "Brienne," he started again, desperately, half-ready to ditch the whole thing and beg her forgiveness, but she snapped out,

"Just _go_ , gods damn you. Just fucking _go_ ," and she closed the door on him, but not before he saw her face crumple with tears. 

For a long moment after that, he let his head rest against the chipped paint on the door, let himself feel the full weight of the fact that it might very well be as close as he'd get to Brienne from now on. He'd only ever known love to be push and pull, tearing apart and crashing back together, and on some level, he realized that was what he'd expected here. But that wasn't Brienne and never would be, and as she'd said, he'd made his choice.

"I'm sorry," he murmured one last time, much too quietly for her to hear even if she was still somehow there on the other side. Then he forced himself to pull back, straighten his spine, and walk away.

* * * * * * *

All the flights to Storm's End had been booked, so Jaime had plenty of time on the drive to consider exactly how much of an asshole he was, and in how many different ways.

On one hand, he was pretty sure that the horrible raw hurt on Brienne's face would be haunting his nightmares for weeks, and would almost certainly be the deciding factor in sending him to the lowest and most torturous of hells when his day came. On the other hand, it just further proved that he should never have let himself believe he could be worthy of someone who was so fiercely _good_ in ways he'd only read about. 

Cersei _had_ sounded genuinely distraught on the phone, too; he was all too familiar with her damsel-in-distress voice, the one that cajoled and teased and promised a lustful reward if he proved his devotion, like she was reeling him in with silken strings. This time had been different. She'd definitely been crying, the words snubbed out at the ends by her stuffed-up nose, and more than once, her voice had spiraled up and into nothingness before the end of a sentence, panic taking over. Jaime couldn't imagine why she was so anxious to hold on to her lout of a husband, but if awareness of their affair had finally made its way through Robert's thick skull, Jaime owed it to her to help pick up the pieces. And while he had zero confidence in his ability to keep from fucking up Brienne's life, at least he knew how to do this: rush to Cersei's side when she needed him.

The great hall at Storm's End was dark when Jaime pulled up the long drive, a new thread of adrenaline fighting its way through the stupor brought on by hours behind the wheel. He'd had no idea what to expect when he arrived, so he'd tried to prepare himself for anything from a brawl to a simple coordination of arrangements. Still, when Cersei came running out of the house and threw herself into his arms, he had to admit he hadn't been quite prepared for how it would feel.

For as long as he could remember, she'd been a goddess to him, beautiful and untamed and enthralling, and no matter whether he'd loved or hated her, he'd done it with an intensity that had blazed out of him like wildfire. Now, with her body close against him, her head tucked against his shoulder, her familiar scent curling around him, all he could think was how small she felt. How human. 

She tipped her tear-stained face up to his. "Thank you for coming. I don't know what I'd do without you here."

 _Something tells me you'd find a way_ , came a new voice from somewhere in his mind, but he ignored it. "Of course. Where are the kids?" Tommen and Myrcella weren't Jaime's--Cersei was too insistent on multiple forms of birth control to allow for that possibility--but he'd often wished they were, and their easy affection for their Uncle Jaime had filled a hole in his heart that he hadn't even suspected was there. Robert had never hurt them, but if he was angry, then he was unpredictable.

"Sleeping," she answered, and Jaime felt some of the tension drain out of his shoulders. "I thought they should rest while they could. I can't believe you drove all the way here, you must be exhausted." She reached up to stroke his hair away from his temples, and he eased back from her.

"I'm all right. Is Robert here?"

She shook her head. "He's still at the conference; he told me not to expect him home tonight. Out revenge-fucking some brainless pair of tits, I assume."

"As opposed to the tits that have brains?" he couldn't help asking, half-delirious, which earned him a glare. "Sorry," he said. "Long drive. What can I do?"

"Just come inside for now. I'll make us some tea." She held out her hand--toward his uninjured one, like she always did. Jaime hesitated, wanting to get moving on getting them the hell out of there before things got worse, but she had an uncharacteristically hopeful look on her face, so he took her hand and let her lead him inside. 

"So how are you holding up?" he asked when she brought him a steaming mug with a string dangling over the side. The smell of peppermint wafted up to his nose. That had always been Cersei's evening tea of choice, since they were kids; Jaime knew exactly what it tasted like on her tongue, sweet and sharp. He'd been adding honey to his as long as they'd been drinking it together, which Cersei had never remembered, and she didn't offer him any now, either. He blew on the surface of the tea anyway, the spicy steam making his eyes water, waking him up.

"It's been horrible," she said. "I've always known that Robert could be cruel, but to bring all of us here just so he could make his grand accusations… I mean, the _children_ , Jaime."

Jaime winced. "Do they know?"

"They were outside playing when he staged his little confrontation. I'm sure they could hear him yelling, but they both said they couldn't understand what he was saying, only that he was angry. I told them he'd had an argument with one of his business partners. I think Tommen believed me, but Myrcella could tell that I'd been crying, and she wouldn't leave my side all afternoon. I had to stay in her bed until she fell asleep." She shook her head, red-rimmed eyes welling with tears again. "She's so sweet. So good. I don't know how Robert and I managed to make someone so good." 

Jaime reached over to set a comforting hand--his left one, for her sake--on her forearm, and she clutched at it like a lifeline.

"I wish she'd been yours," Cersei whispered fiercely, eyes glittering like shards of glass. "I wish Tommen had, too. I wish we were all yours."

For so many long years, he'd ached to hear those words. Now he felt them like the phantom pains he had sometimes in his missing fingers. "Cersei--"

"Robert already believes it's true," she went on, running over his words. "The gossips never really believed we broke up. The children adore you. Tywin would be so proud and happy--just think of his face when we tell him." She smiled and laid a hand to Jaime's cheek. "We could finally, truly be together, no more hiding."

Jaime swallowed hard; he'd come here to be supportive, but there was only so far he was willing to let her revise their history. "We wouldn't have had to hide anything if you'd married me instead of someone else," he couldn't resist pointing out. It was a well-worn argument, a groove they'd paced many times over the years--usually as she was getting dressed in some hotel room, making sure that every button was in place and every hair smoothed before she went back to her husband.

She sat back and narrowed her eyes. "I can't believe you'd throw that in my face at a time like this."

He sighed. "What tipped him off, anyway?" he asked, deciding a change of subject was for the best. "It's a little ironic, him finally catching on after there was nothing actually happening between us."

"Oh." Her lips curved in a ghost of a laugh, though her eyes skipped away from his, down to where she was still clutching his hand. "I think he must have seen something on TV--you've been in the news, you know--and he wouldn't be persuaded otherwise. He was raving, he said he'd always suspected and now he knew for sure."

He'd followed the line of her gaze, and saw a glint of gold on her slender wrist. When he looked closer, he could see that it was a thin bracelet with a heavily stylized lion emblem worked into the center of it, its garnet eye winking. Something tugged at the back of his travel-fogged brain. "I don't think I've seen that bracelet on you before," he said. But he had seen it somewhere.

"Well, you've always been a bit too distracted to pay attention to accessories," she told him, in the playful, sultry tone she had that slid along his spine like a caress.

"I like it," he said as he pushed her sleeve up for a better look, as casually as he could, tracing the lion's head; he could feel the tension in her wrist.

"I thought you might." She smiled and tangled his fingers in hers. "I saw it in a store a while back, and I thought of you. I couldn't help buying it. Just to feel a little closer to you." She looked up at him through her long eyelashes. "Silly, I know. It's probably part of what made Robert so angry today."

She'd always overdone the flirting a little, and it had always been a game between them, like she was roleplaying an innocent young girl who didn't realize her powers, when they both knew that she could wield them with blunt force or deadly precision when she chose to. At the moment, though, he was rapidly losing his taste for games. "What store did you find it in? It looks familiar." It was dancing around the edge of his mind, just out of his reach.

"Oh." She laughed and took her hand back, shaking her sleeve down to cover the band of gold. "I don't even remember. I was out with the children, and Myrcella wanted to go look at the jewelry, and--"

The memory clicked into place in Jaime's brain. The last Lannister event where he'd made an appearance, and--"Lancel." Gods, that was it. His ludicrous cousin had been so excited to show Jaime that bracelet. _I bought it for a woman_ , he'd confided, with his typical flair for the obvious. _A beautiful woman. But I can't tell you who._ "You've been fucking _Lancel_?"

"What?" She shoved back from the table and crossed her arms, tossing her long hair over her shoulder. "Who? That's ridiculous. You don't have to be jealous, Jaime, I'm--"

"I'm not jealous," he said, and only fully realized it was true as it came out of his mouth. The pieces were starting to fall into place now. "That was what Robert found out about, wasn't it? Not me. Him."

She sniffed. "I asked you to come here because I thought I could trust you, and now, when I need you the most, all you can do is accuse me of--"

"Just stop," he interrupted. "Please." Because while he was angry--at her, at himself--what he mostly was, was tired. Tired of the merry-go-round of it all, the shouting matches that ended in tearing each other's clothes off, the truths that came buried under an avalanche of lies, the endless struggle between what she wanted and what she only wanted to want, between who she was and who he'd always wanted her to be. It felt like the time he'd hunted out his childhood tree fort at Casterly Rock and found it crumbling and distorted, too small to bear his weight anymore.

"Just be honest with me," he told her. "For once." His smile felt twisted on his face. "I mean, it's not like either of us has much to lose right now."

"All right, _fine_ ," she snapped. "Yes, I was fucking Lancel. All right? You're so clever, you figured it out. Are you happy now?"

"No." He couldn't help it: he burst out laughing, though every sound hurt on the way out. "No, I'm fucking miserable, actually. I let down someone I love--" and that was a word he wished he'd said to Brienne while he had the chance--"to be here for you, for the kids, because I felt _responsible_. And now it turns out we have my idiot cousin to thank for all this. Did you think I wouldn't find out?"

"I thought that by the time you found out, we'd be together and it wouldn't matter," she said defiantly.

"Was any of it true?" he demanded. "Did he really threaten to leave you?" 

"Yes," she hissed, tears starting again now, and he knew they were real because they were ugly, distorting the delicate lines of her face. "He couldn't stop ranting about how embarrassing it would be for him, that his wife was stupid enough to get caught having an affair. He wasn't even mad about the affair itself, just what it would do to his precious reputation. To his business interests." She said the last words on a sneer, pressing a fist to her chest like she was trying to crush whatever was inside. "He never loved me, not even enough to want to keep me for himself."

"Cersei," he said helplessly, caught between his own frustration and her obvious pain. _That's not love_ , he wanted to say, because he knew better now, but he wasn't sure she'd know how to believe it.

"But you loved me," she went on. She grasped for him, caught his face between her hands. "You always loved me. The two of us, forever, like it was meant to be, we could--"

"Cersei." He reached up to her wrists and gently pried her hands away from him. "I've known you for all of my life that matters. Of course I'll always love you." And him loving her had never made either of them happy, no matter how many times he'd hoped it would. 

Her fingers curled into fists. "But you're not mine anymore," she whispered, her eyes searching his. "Are you?"

His answer was quiet but firm. "No. No, I'm not." 

He'd said essentially the same thing about Cersei to Brienne earlier, and he'd thought that he'd meant it at the time. But standing here--looking at her, holding her--and feeling the absence of everything that had been there for so long, shook him to his core. He felt like he'd opened the door to his house and found it relocated to another city entirely while he wasn't looking.

Gods, he was such an idiot.

She kept her gaze locked on his for another few seconds, then he could see the shutters descend, and she nodded, yanked her wrists out of his grip and stepped back. She smoothed her tears away and straightened the line of her skirt. "Then get out."

It was the second time in less than a day that a woman had told him that, and while he'd deserved it the first time, this time seemed a little unfair. "For Seven's sake, it doesn't have to be like this."

"Oh, really?" she sneered. "What could it be like? Brave, honorable Jaime condescending to help poor Cersei, who's made such a mess of her life? I don't want your pity." She spat the word at him. 

"I don't pity you, Cersei, and I sure as hell wouldn't claim to be above you. Gods, not everything is a power struggle," he said, exasperated.

"Maybe not for you. Not all of us are so lucky," she hissed back. "And since you've made it clear that you're not interested in being above me ever again, you're no good to me. So get out."

He thought about pressing it further, but he was exhausted, and it was pointless anyway; he'd never known Cersei to do anything besides escalate when she felt threatened. He sighed. "All right, I'm going." Though the thought of another several hours behind the wheel, when he was still sore from the trip there, made him want to curl up right there on the floor. Still, he wanted home, or at least the empty shell of it. "And I know you probably aren't interested in my opinion, but for what it's worth: I think you should go, too. Take the kids and get out. Start your own life somewhere."

"Where?" she asked bitterly. "Besides you and your family, the only people I know are Robert's people, and they'll all take his side, and he _will_ make sure I'm left with nothing. If I leave him, I'll leave behind everything I've fought for."

He could only raise an incredulous eyebrow. "Yes, you'll be left with only one of the most intelligent, most resourceful, most terrifying women I've ever known. What chance could she possibly have, faced with the likes of Robert Baratheon and his golf buddies?"

She snorted and rolled her eyes, but he could see he'd found his mark. "Go home, Jaime."

He nodded. "Say hi to the kids for me." As welcome as delighted faces and sticky hugs would have been at the moment, he was glad to know they were tucked up safe and content for the night.

He started for the door; her voice chased after him, a mixture of incredulity, accusation, and disdain:

"You really do love her, don't you?"

He didn't turn around, just nodded again, chin ducking toward the floor. _Not that that matters now._

"Don't fuck it up," she told him crisply, and it surprised him enough that he laughed, though there wasn't any joy in it.

"Too late." 

"Ah, there's the Jaime I know." It had a razor edge to it, as usual, but he also wondered if it might be her twisted way of trying to express her affection. His lifelong double-edged sword. 

Or maybe that was just his own wishful thinking.

He craned his head over his shoulder to look at her. "Goodbye, Cersei."

"Goodbye, Jaime," she answered, and it sounded like a door closing behind him.

* * * * * * *

Jaime didn't make it far from Storm's End before he was swerving off the road, his eyes drifting shut, so he pulled over to sleep for a few hours until he woke up with the sun in his eyes and started driving again. On the way, he had another little chat with the financial aid department at his alma mater, which kept him fueled for a while with righteous indignation, more potent than any coffee. But by the time he made it back to King's Landing in the afternoon, he was in a listless, road-weary stupor again. On autopilot, he went back to his penthouse to shower and change his clothes, then wondered what he was going to do with himself for the rest of the day. Or his life.

He couldn't talk to Tyrion about this, because Tyrion would just condemn Cersei and Jaime would end up defending her and none of that was what Jaime wanted. But he didn't want to be alone, either. What he wanted most, of course, was to talk to Brienne, but that was off the table for painfully obvious reasons, so instead, he found himself wandering to Bronn's bar. Since reconciliation was impossible, flagellation seemed the most logical alternative, and Bronn was always good for telling people what dumb fucks they were.

"You dumb fuck," Bronn said as soon as Jaime sat down, and well, that was efficient.

"Can I at least have a drink?" Jaime asked, more plaintively than he meant to.

"You don't fucking deserve one," Bronn informed him, and Jaime couldn't disagree; he put his elbows up on the slightly sticky bar-top and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyelids until he saw starbursts.

Bronn made a disgusted noise. "Father's balls, you're a pathetic sight." 

Jaime couldn't disagree with that either, but a moment later, something that sounded very much like a glass thunked down next to his elbow. It turned out that it _was_ a glass, full enough of amber liquid that he nearly wept in gratitude, and he knocked back a recklessly large gulp. For a few seconds, the vicious burn down his throat and chest blocked out everything else, and then he remembered the face Brienne had made when he'd shared his whiskey with her at the gala, and every terrible decision he'd made in the past twenty-four hours crowded right back in. He sighed and set the whiskey down.

"So I take it you've heard."

"Your brother was in here last night, drinking all my best red wine and cursing you and Cersei Baratheon with every alternate breath. I heard it whether I wanted to or not." Bronn glared at him as he dried glasses with his bar towel.

Jaime winced. While he'd broken the news to Brienne in person as a point of honor, when it came to Tyrion, he'd taken the chickenshit way out and only texted him an update. There had been no response at all for a while, followed eventually by several middle finger emoji, and Jaime was dreading his brother's scorn the next time they saw each other. "I was trying to do the right thing," he said, and it was weak in his own ears.

"Really?" Bronn said. "You somehow fucked the sense out of a woman like Brienne Tarth so that she would put up with your brooding ass, then you ditched her right before the most important day of her career so that you could go grovel at that viper's feet again for the thousandth time in your miserable life. Which part of that was the right thing, again?"

"She's not--" Jaime started automatically, then it occurred to him that Cersei would probably take the description as a compliment anyway. "Vipers don't have feet."

Bronn snatched the whiskey away from him. "Get out of my bar."

That was starting to become a theme. "Why are _you_ mad about this?" He'd expected and even welcomed Bronn's typical blunt commentary, but he hadn't expected it to be quite so heated.

"Because one of the terrible things about owning a bar is that I have to listen to people," Bronn growled, and Jaime looked around, not sure whether to be grateful that he was the only patron there at the moment. "And you've been in here crying over the same exact fucking thing for years, _oh, she'll never really love me, I'm just a broken shell of a man_ , blah blah blah, and I've had to nod my head and pour you drinks to drown yourself in every godsdamned time. And then finally--finally!--you manage to pull your head out of your ass long enough to notice a woman who's actually worth noticing, and you throw all that away with both hands. And now here you are, crying _again_ over your precious Cersei even though your cousin has been sticking it to her for months. Meanwhile, Brienne is off having to explain to everyone that her asshole boyfriend abandoned her, all while trying to win this competition without a single trained chef to help her."

Jaime could only blink. He'd brought Brienne here once, to watch a Pirates game; apparently she'd made quite an impression. Then the details of what Bronn was saying caught up to him. "You knew about Lancel?"

Bronn gave him a withering stare. "Your brother is in here a few nights a week," he said. "Believe me, I'd like to know so much less about this sordid little soap opera you all have going on."

" _Tyrion_ knew about Lancel?" Jaime considered feeling betrayed by that, but as he thought about it, it made sense that Tyrion had been reluctant to tell him in case it sent him into some sort of jealousy spiral, which wouldn't have been exactly unprecedented. _That's not love_ , he'd wanted to tell Cersei the night before--though it felt like year ago--and looking back at his own history with her through the lens of Bronn's perspective, what had seemed like heroic dedication and loyalty now just seemed… sad and self-destructive, for both of them.

"I just assume you're all fucking each other, one way or another; it seems safer that way," was Bronn's assessment.

"Well," said Jaime, reclaiming his whiskey from where Bronn had left it unguarded, "for the sake of variety, you might be glad to know that I'm not here because Cersei rejected me, I'm here because I rejected _her_. Only I did it too late and now Brienne will probably never speak to me again, for the reasons you so kindly elucidated."

"Wait." Bronn leaned forward, both hands planted on the bar. "You broke things off with Cersei for good, and now you're… here. Drinking. While Brienne gets ready to face Daenerys Targaryen in an hour or so."

Jaime glanced at the clock; the last couple of days had blurred together so much that he hadn't even put together what time it was now and what time they were due to start filming. And put like that, it did sound… hmm. "She's better off without me," he recited, the foundation for this whole clusterfuck of an enterprise. It felt less convincing every time.

"Did she decide that, or did you, you high-handed fucker?"

That was uncomfortably close to what Brienne had already pointed out to him, except of course she'd phrased it somewhat differently. Still, "I don't want to distract her," he protested. He'd already thrown her off her game by bailing at the last minute, he didn't want to be the guy who showed up in the middle of a crucial moment and demanded her attention.

Bronn rolled his eyes. "Every excuse not to take your balls in your hands and _try_. You're a fucking coward, Lannister."

Jaime's vision swam red around the edges, and his hand tightened around his glass. "Call me that again," he ground out, because he was tired and his entire fucking life had rearranged itself in the past twenty-four hours and there was only so much he was willing to take.

Bronn only grinned at him, wide and sharp. "If you're not, then prove it. They're filming at the Dragonpit. Get your self-pitying ass down there and beg Brienne to let you hold up your end of the bargain you made."

Ever since he'd decided on his course of action, Jaime had been fighting picturing it, and now he let the image come into his head: Brienne surrounded by a chattering crowd, standing tall at her station, all cool competence and ferocious determination, and suddenly he wanted to see her so badly he could barely breathe. He didn't want to get in her way, and he had every confidence in her ability to wipe the floor with Daenerys Targaryen or anyone else, no matter who was or wasn't there to assist her, but he could just… be nearby. Just in case. Witness her triumph even if he didn't get to be a part of it.

He stood slowly, sliding his glass back across the bar, feeling something like genuine excitement starting to hum in his veins for the first time in days.

"Mother's tits. _Finally._ " Bronn took the glass and tossed back the rest of the whiskey himself, then let out a large belch.

Jaime clapped him on the shoulder, reckless and just the slightest bit hysterical. "Thanks for the heart-to-heart. It means so much to know you care." He pulled out the majority of the dragons he had in his wallet and dumped them on the bar without counting.

Bronn gathered them all up and slipped them into his pocket before adding, "If you somehow manage to fuck this up even worse, don't you dare come back here with your sob story. I get at least a week vacation from Lannisters after this."

"Drinking alone at home only, I promise," Jaime told him, holding up a hand like he was swearing an oath. Just as he was about to head for the door, a thought occurred to him. "You know, you seem to be awfully familiar with the shooting schedule for _Game of Chefs_ , for someone who's sick of our little soap opera."

In all the long years he'd known him, Jaime had never, not once, seen Bronn blush, and he didn't now, but he came closer to it than Jaime ever thought he'd witness: a lightning-fast flare of embarrassment across his face, a flicker of one shoulder. "Tyrion has been in here mooning over that Silverfist woman, I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. Plus I do work in the industry--it's good to know what's going on, who might be able to send me some customers who aren't exhausting cunts."

Jaime barely registered the insult, too busy trying to keep his eyebrows from climbing off his forehead. "Tyrion and Tysha, hmm?" Now _that_ was very interesting information with all sorts of potential future applications.

"He's at the Pit already, unlike some dumb fucks I know. So let's see if you can navigate your own love life for a week without tripping over your own dick, then worry about Tyrion's," Bronn suggested.

"See, most bartenders only give people advice, but with you, I get poetry, too," Jaime said in mock wonder.

Bronn turned his back on him and started slicing limes with ruthless precision. "Quit stalling, you're just embarrassing yourself."

Caught out, Jaime tried for one last parting shot, backing toward the door. "Now that I know you're a superfan, I'll see if I can get you some autographs. Does Oberyn Martell make your stomach feel all fluttery? I could try for his if you'd like."

"Why don't you try shoving it up your ass," Bronn called after him as Jaime ducked out into the early evening light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note on Cersei: as a rule, I don't like demonizing female exes in stories, and even though I think Jaime and Cersei are terrible together and she has made a lot of terrible and selfish choices even in the less-fucked-up world of this story, I wanted to hold out hope that in this AU at least, she could actually have a chance at redemption/atonement and even happiness, eventually. Just, you know. Not in a way that continues to sabotage Jaime's happiness. Heh. (Also I'm sorry we didn't get back to Brienne in this chapter, but I will offer you the spoiler that she has been getting comforting snuggles and sympathetic rage from Margaery, so. Our girl is not alone!)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"This is what we're going to do," Margaery told her. "You're going to drink a glass of water and take a long, hot shower, and I'm going to get us breakfast from the cafe down the street. We're going to split a mimosa--" Brienne started to object, but Margaery held up a hand to stop her--"just_ split _, okay? It'll be fine. And then we're going to pick up Podrick, go down to the Dragonpit, and you're going to win this whole fucking thing. And we'll be right behind you the whole way."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't the last chapter, but since there's only a short epilogue left after this, it's the last BIG chapter, so. Here's hoping I didn't D&D this! Thank you sooooooo much to all of you who've made it this far, and thank you especially to SD Wolfpup who, in addition to her excellent beta skills, has also been EXTREMELY patient with my neuroses. ❤️

Brienne woke up on the morning of the finale contorted awkwardly on her couch, with her aching head pillowed on Margaery's lap and her eyes parched from crying.

She tried to get up quietly so as not to disturb her friend, but as soon as she managed to get herself standing, Margaery's eyelashes fluttered.

"Mmmph," she said, rubbing a hand across her face. "What time is it?"

Brienne glanced at the clock. "About nine in the morning."

Margaery yawned and carefully straightened out her neck, with a wince that she tried to hide, though not quickly enough. "I'm so sorry," Brienne said. "I didn't mean to--"

"Brie." Margaery waved a hand. "I pretty much owe you a million bad breakup SOS calls, so believe me, we're still far from even." She squinted a little in the morning light, long waves of hair falling messily around her shoulders. "I know this is probably a silly question, but how're you doing this morning, honey?"

Brienne started to answer, except somehow she wasn't out of tears despite having shed what felt like an entire ocean of them the night before; they scalded her eyes and tightened her throat and she couldn't speak. Margaery gave her a sweetly sympathetic look and got up to wrap her arms around her. Brienne held on tight, squeezing her eyes shut.

"This is what we're going to do," Margaery told her. "You're going to drink a glass of water and take a long, hot shower, and I'm going to get us breakfast from the cafe down the street. We're going to split a mimosa--" Brienne started to object, but Margaery held up a hand to stop her--"just _split_ , okay? It'll be fine. And then we're going to pick up Podrick, go down to the Dragonpit, and you're going to win this whole fucking thing. And we'll be right behind you the whole way."

 _Unlike some people_ remained unspoken, which Brienne appreciated; as much as she'd enjoyed Margaery's increasingly vicious and elaborate threats to Jaime's career and crucial elements of his person the night before, today she was determined to think about him as little as possible. Of course, "as little as possible" was still going to be much, much more than she wanted to, given that he'd so seamlessly woven into her life over the past couple of months, and now there were ragged holes everywhere. But she was just going to have to start yanking all those threads close together again, and there was no time like the present.

She hugged Margaery tighter, then stepped back. "Okay. Let's do this."

* * * * * * *

Shae, the hair and makeup artist, took one look at Brienne when she arrived in their makeshift backstage space in one of the larger side chambers of the Dragonpit, and her eyes went soft. She opened her mouth, and Brienne could feel tears threatening, again, some more; Shae pressed her lips together.

"Hi, Chef Tarth," she said. "Come on and have a seat," and she patted the makeup chair. Brienne sank into it, grateful for Shae's discretion, and let her mind drift while Shae kept up a stream of cheerful chatter that didn't require any responses. She expertly applied a cooling eye mask followed by moisturizer, then primer and concealer and foundation, her gentle fingers smoothing away the evidence of a long and painful night. Brienne had never been much for makeup, but she was grateful for it now, grateful for any shield between her still-raw emotions and the world.

When she was done, Shae gave Brienne's hair a final stroke, then patted her on the shoulder. "Go get 'em, Chef."

The issue with Shae's efficiency was that Brienne found herself with entirely too much time before filming actually started; Pod and Margaery were off somewhere getting their own makeup and hair attended to, and Brienne wandered through the ruins for a little while, trying to appreciate actually being inside the historic structure that she'd only ever seen from a distance, and trying not to wonder if being there would give Daenerys some sort of ancestral home-field advantage. She was following the line of a carving along one of the stone walls when she came around a corner and almost ran directly into Tyrion.

"Brienne!" he said in surprise, then held up both hands in front of him. "I'm sorry, it should be Chef Tarth, here, shouldn't it."

"Brienne is fine," was all she could get out, what with her tongue crowded with things like _what are you doing here_ and _have you talked to Jaime_ and _what did he say about me_. They'd had more than one dinner with Tyrion over the past couple of months, and she liked him, liked his arid wit and his clear, razor-sharp affection for his brother. Right now, though, looking at him, all she could think of was Jaime.

"I'm here as a guest of the lovely Chef Silverfist," he explained; her least pressing question, but one of them, anyway, which presented some intriguing possibilities that she would have been interested in following up on if she'd currently been able to muster any sense of humor regarding romance. "I'm glad to see you, though--I was hoping I'd get the chance to wish you good luck." 

She forced a smile onto her face. "That's very kind, thank you."

"Well, I'm a very kind man," he said, with the heavy layer of irony that seemed to be one of his calling cards. He drew in a breath, then went on, "Brienne... I know you've got things to do, and I know we don't know each other all that well yet, so I hope I'm not overstepping--though given our height difference, maybe I should be worried about _understepping_ , but regardless. I wanted to… I was hoping to have the chance to tell you that in all his life, I've never seen Jaime as happy as he was when he was with you."

Brienne closed her eyes against a vivid, anger-edged flare of pain that fountained up like flames out of her stomach and into her throat. "Not happy enough, apparently," she managed when she could see again.

Tyrion heaved a sigh. "I can certainly understand why you'd think that. But while I couldn't tell you exactly what was going through his mind yesterday, I can tell you that we were raised to believe that if we weren't bringing sufficient advantages to the family, our services could and should be terminated at any time. I can tell you that if enough people tell you how hateful you are, it's difficult not to start believing them. And more than anything, I can tell you that, though he's very clever in many ways, Jaime is never quite as stupid as when he's in love."

Those last words slammed into her like a punch to the solar plexus; she'd already suspected the real reason that Jaime had left, whatever other excuses he'd given her, but--"Why are you telling me this?" she demanded. She'd known Tyrion could be sarcastic, but this was downright cruel. "He's already gone, I don't need to hear about how he loves some other woman."

Tyrion shook his head furiously. "No, no, that's what I'm trying to say--poorly, I now realize. I meant that Jaime loves _you_ , Brienne. I know him better than anyone, and I know that."

And while Brienne had always loved roller-coasters, the lifts and drops of this one were too steep even for her; she wanted, more than anything, to believe that somehow what Tyrion was saying could be true, but Jaime was _gone_ , he'd left and hadn't come back, so-- 

She knew she should respond, but she couldn't. Her jaw was clenched tight, all her energy focused on not destroying all Shae's hard work.

"Look," Tyrion said on another sigh, "I'm obviously telling you this because he's my brother and--unseemly though it might be, in our family--I love him. But," and he lowered his voice, his smile going somehow bitter and wistful at the same time, "I'm also telling you because I understand better than most people what it is to expect that you'll be left on the outside. That who and what you are will be fundamentally unlovable." He lifted a shoulder. "I know that he's hurt you, and I don't expect you to just ignore that, but. Whatever happens, I thought that at least you should know the truth."

It was too much--Brienne had to get out of there, or she was going to cry or start laughing maniacally or throw up or do something equally detrimental to her chances at winning this thing she'd worked so hard for. "I have to go," she told him, already searching for the nearest escape route. 

Tyrion nodded, his eyes sad and more gentle than she'd ever seen them. "I understand. Good luck today, Chef. You deserve it."

She nodded, once, in thanks, then walked away as quickly as she could, losing herself in the growing crowd of crew members setting up generators and lights and camera rigs. For a while she could barely see or hear anything, too busy using each long stride to sand the edges off her jagged feelings, until eventually her mind cleared enough for her to notice that she was indisputably not supposed to be wandering around like a zombie in the middle of the set. 

After the third time she nearly collided with someone who was actually doing something productive, she decided to get herself out of the way and found a room that was unoccupied save for a few chairs scattered around. She was sitting by herself with her hands folded, staring at the floor, when a voice interrupted her racing thoughts.

"I see you've had a wardrobe change."

Brienne looked up to see Chef Stark peering around the edge of the stone doorway. Brienne straightened in her chair automatically, tugging down the sleeves of her coat. Her white coat.

"I…" Brienne was relieved to find that she was too nervous to even come close to crying. "I thought something traditional would be more appropriate for the finale." She'd brought her blue coat with her, and had been wrestling all day with whether the attention that the change would no doubt attract would be worth the relief of not having a constant reminder of Jaime wrapped around her, feeling every inch of the chasm between the night he'd presented it to her and now. In the end, no matter what Tyrion had said, she just hadn't been able to bring herself to slide her arms into the sleeves.

"Mmm." Chef Stark stepped into the room, and Brienne shifted uncomfortably; Chef Stark laughed. "Don't worry, I just came from checking on Dany, too; there's no favoritism here."

Brienne's shoulders relaxed somewhat, and she chuckled as well, a bit shamefaced. "Sorry, Chef."

"I think it's admirable," Chef Stark told her with a warm smile. "Though I hope it won't compromise your principles if I tell you that Sansa wanted me to wish you good luck."

Brienne smiled back, pleased that Sansa had thought of her, and even more pleased at the thought of another potential friendly face in the crowd. "That's very sweet of her. Will she be here today?"

"Yes," Chef Stark answered. "My other daughter will be here as well, though honestly, I think she's mainly here for the knives."

Brienne's smile widened. "A girl after my own heart."

"I'll introduce you afterward. And to my sons, too--they'd all like to meet our two finalists." Chef Stark paused, then went on, "I also have some news for you: I've been asked to announce today that a new scholarship has been created at the King's Landing Institute of Culinary Excellence."

"Oh?" Brienne had once dreamed of going there, herself, but it had been hilariously out of her price range. "That's wonderful."

"It is," Chef Stark agreed. "The student who receives it will have all expenses covered, including tuition, housing, and a monthly stipend. The only stipulation is that the recipient can't be a cisgender male."

Brienne blinked. She was so used to merit-based scholarships turning out to be anything but; in her experience, pleasant surprises usually weren't a part of these announcements. "That's… that's also wonderful."

"I agree." Chef Stark moved closer, close enough to sink into the chair next to Brienne with her typical quiet grace. "I thought all of our competitors this season were gifted, but between you and me, I'm selfishly glad that it's you and Daenerys, here at the end. You'll be such an inspiration to so many young girls, no matter what happens tonight."

"Thank you, Chef." Brienne could feel warmth spreading down her neck, half embarrassment and half pleasure.

"In any case, the donor evidently wanted to remain anonymous," Chef Stark went on, "so even I don't know who they are, but apparently they called this morning and they wanted you, particularly, to know that it would be called the Evenstar Scholarship."

It took a second for the meaning to make its way through Brienne's foggy brain, but as soon as it did, her breath caught and her heart stuttered. She'd told Jaime about it once, the ancient title of her family on Sapphire Island. How when she was little, she'd pretend to be a just and gracious lady, helping the needy and offering protection to the innocent. Anonymity or not, as far as she was concerned, he might as well have signed his name to it in ten-foot-high lettering and laid it at her doorstep.

And yet he was hundreds of miles away, tucked away with the beautiful woman he'd been devoted to since he was a child. Then again, if how Chef Stark described the call was true, he'd still been determined to reach out. Maybe he was doing it out of pity, or guilt, or as some sort of goodbye present, and on one hand, Brienne was furious that he'd left her alone but still wouldn't leave her alone. On the much weightier other hand, though, she suddenly missed him--missed being _seen_ by him--so badly that it speared through her center like hot metal.

Chef Stark was watching her with kind eyes, and Brienne knew that her own poker face was laughably bad, but Chef Stark didn't say anything for a long moment, just let Brienne slowly absorb the news until she could breathe again.

"Do you know what I liked about your blue coat?" Chef Stark asked quietly, eventually.

"What was that, Chef?" It came out hoarse, and Brienne cleared her throat.

"It stood out," Chef Stark told her. "It said that you weren't afraid to take up space."

Brienne snorted a humorless laugh. "With all due respect, I take up space whether I want to or not."

"Brienne. I know you're much too intelligent to think I was talking about your height," Chef Stark said reprovingly.

"Yes, Chef," Brienne mumbled, abruptly fascinated by a spot on the far wall. After having spent the past couple of years giving Podrick combination scoldings and pep talks, she guessed it was only fair that she be on the receiving end of one for once. Even Renly had never done that, just treated her with basic dignity, though was frustratingly rare in and of itself.

Then Chef Stark reached out and put a steadying hand on Brienne's shoulder, and Brienne's eyes snapped back up to hers with surprise. "It's been a pleasure watching you come into your own this past month," Chef Stark told her. "When I think of the shy woman who couldn't get off the stage fast enough at the gala, and compare her to the chef who commanded her station with courage and skill during the semi-final… I'm so proud to have been a part of your journey."

Brienne's throat tightened again, though at least it was a welcome change to be getting teary-eyed over something besides the wreckage of her love life. "It's been an honor, Chef. Truly. I know everyone always says this, but--thank you for giving me the opportunity." She swallowed hard. "Many people wouldn't have."

"Many people can't tell the difference between a truffle and a toadstool," Chef Stark said wryly, startling Brienne into a real laugh, her first since Jaime had showed up at her door the previous day. It bubbled through her like cool water, bringing blessed--if temporary--relief. 

"Anyway," Chef Stark went on, "I'd hate to see you lose any of that hard-won confidence just because…" She trailed off. "Well. Because." She stood, giving Brienne's arm one last squeeze. "You deserve to take up space, Brienne Tarth. Don't ever let anything or anyone make you feel differently."

Brienne had to clear her throat again, but she kept her chin tipped up, meeting Chef Stark's cool gaze. "Yes, Chef. Thank you, Chef."

Chef Stark gave her a brisk nod. "Good. Now I'd better go get in position." She was almost out the door before she turned back. "Oh, but I wanted to tell you--I think your community kitchen idea is an excellent one, and much-needed in King's Landing. No matter what happens tonight, if you need investors, I hope you'll consider me."

Stunned, Brienne could only stammer, "Thank you, Chef. I--I'll definitely--thank you."

Chef Stark only nodded again. "Good luck tonight, Chef Tarth." And then she slipped out the door.

In her wake, Brienne sat with the wheels of her brain spinning, some jittery mix of nerves and excitement starting to work its way through the numbness that had blanketed her for most of the day. She looked at her blue coat, lying tossed over another chair in the corner of the room.

"Fuck it," she said out loud, and strode across the room, yanking the coat from its resting place and shrugging it on before she could change her mind. Jaime might have been one of the first people to truly see her--Pod and Margaery excepted, of course--but she was damned if he'd be the last. The coat was hers now, and the competition was hers, too, to do with it what she could.

As if on cue, Pod and Margaery appeared in the doorway, looking smoothed and coiffed, sporting crisp white coats of their own.

Podrick took one look at her and grinned. "Well, Chef, they sent us to ask you if you were ready, but I think you answered our question."

The grin that Brienne gave him back was at least as much bared teeth as it was anything else. "Looks like we're all ready. Let's go."

As they emerged out into the center of the ruined dome, Brienne could just begin to make out the brightest stars above them in the lowering dusk, the clouds painted fiery pink and gold in a way that she could only assume the _Game of Chefs_ producers had ordered up specifically. She examined the final setup carefully, getting the lay of the land: on the large dais in the middle of the space, each of their stations was equipped with its own set of ranges, fed by massive propane tanks that huddled out of view of the cameras, as well as a charcoal grill. The pantry was set up behind them, rows of free-standing shelving and a huge refrigerator. The judges' table was off to one side, and next to it there was a large curtain covered in intricate patterns, with the _Game of Chefs_ logo in the middle of it, suspended in front of what looked like a pair of pedestals or possibly another table. Off beyond the pool of the production lights, Brienne could hear the hum of the crowd, though they weren't illuminated enough for her to make out any faces.

Daenerys was waiting already, with her assistants, Rhaegar and Drogon, stationed not far from her. The twins, broad-shouldered and even taller than Brienne, were long-time friends of Daenerys' and owned multiple highly-regarded restaurants in Braavos. Daenerys looked even tinier standing in front of them, and Brienne wondered if Daenerys had chosen her companions for their size as well as their skill, a subtle intimidation tactic. The thought made Brienne grin; psychological warfare wasn't her style, but she could respect a good strategy, and if Daenerys saw Brienne as enough of a threat that she'd try to grab as many advantages over her as possible, well, Brienne was taking that as a compliment.

As choreographed, she and Daenerys met in the center of the dais and shook hands before pivoting to stand in front of the judges. 

Chef Stark, seated at the middle of the judges' table, stood to greet them.

"Chef Targaryen. Chef Tarth. Welcome to the finale of _Game of Chefs_!"

The crowd applauded vigorously, and Brienne took a deep breath of fresh air, searching for the hint of salt off the bay to help ground her.

"Tonight's competition will be broken up into two rounds," Chef Stark went on. "In the first round, you'll have forty-five minutes to create two different appetizers to serve thirty people. As for the second round, well." She smiled. "We can't give you a head start on that. But the most important thing is, in each round, you'll have to include at least one element from each of tonight's inspirations: ice and fire." The curtain next to the judges' table dropped, revealing an intricate ice sculpture of a dragon, at least six feet long. As they watched, a jet of flames erupted from its mouth, drawing pleased _ooohs_ from the crowd.

Brienne barely saw it, her mind already galloping ahead to what she wanted to make; she glanced sideways at Daenerys, who raised an eyebrow at her, mouth quirked up on one side as if to say _here we go_ , then Chef Silverfist was saying, "Your time starts… now!" and they were off.

"Here's the plan," Brienne told Pod and Margaery as they huddled eagerly by her station. Her assistants weren't allowed to contribute their own ideas, only execute her vision. It was tempting to try to use actual fire somewhere in at least one of her dishes, but that seemed too unpredictable, so. "Grilled oysters with a frozen spicy tomato sauce, chilled avocado soup with a red pepper sauce on toast. Sound good?" After the overwhelming tangle of feelings of the past day, it was a relief to be forced to narrow her focus to this: the next moment, the next task.

"Yes, Chef," said Pod, and Margaery added, " _Hell_ yes," which made Pod grin at her.

"Good," Brienne said. "Pod, start on the oysters--remove the top shell, loosen the bottom one. Margaery, pre-heat the oven to 350 and start the grill on high. I'll go get the ingredients for everything else." 

She dashed for the pantry, filling her basket with tomatoes, peppers, chilis, dragon pepper flakes, spices, avocados, herbs, chicken stock, onions, limes, running down her mental list of ingredients like she was reviewing troops for battle. The soup would take the longest, including time to chill, so she'd start with that; she needed to get the vegetables sweating as soon as possible. Next to her, Daenerys was grabbing oval-shaped white cucumbers--also known as dragon's egg cucumbers; _clever_ , Brienne thought--mint, and melon.

 _Eyes on your own paper, Tarth_ , she told herself firmly; it didn't matter what Daenerys was doing, all Brienne could worry about was her own execution.

Margaery might not have had formal training, but she had excellent knife skills thanks to Brienne's own tutoring, so Brienne put her to work chopping onions, leeks, garlic, and fresh chilis for the soup. Meanwhile, Brienne quickly de-seeded and quartered tangy red peppers, brushed them with olive oil, and tossed them on a pan and into the hot oven. She wouldn't have quite enough time to roast them properly, but she'd throw them on the grill for a few minutes at the end to add some extra char, which she hoped would be enough to make up the difference.

"Are those Dornish chilis I see, Chef Tarth?" asked Chef Martell, wandering her way. 

Brienne, despite the clock ticking ruthlessly in her head, still mustered the presence of mind to grin at him. "Can't have a fire challenge without some influence from Dorne, right, Chef?"

"Well, my people are very flattered that you noticed," Chef Martell answered, batting his eyelashes at her in a deliberately overdone way, and she snickered. Off-camera, she'd found him to be much more than the character he played up for the show: he was kind, quick to laugh, fiercely opinionated without being closed-minded, and conversant in a staggering array of cuisines, though of course he swore that the Dornish way was the only true way. He was also a loving father who kept a small green frog-like crocheted animal with long, pointy ears--a gift from one of his daughters--tucked away in his pocket at all times when they were filming, a good luck charm for a successful show. And he was, in addition to all that, a thoroughly shameless flirt, but at least he was self-aware about it, and she'd heard that he was scrupulously honest in all his many romantic engagements, which Brienne had to respect.

"Can I get you some ice-water, Chef Martell?" Margaery inquired, sweet as a late summer rose, from where she was chopping away; that made Chef Martell laugh and shift his attention to her, allowing Brienne to concentrate on getting Margaery's pile of vegetables divided up evenly into hot pans. _Bless you_ , Brienne thought fervently in Margaery's direction as she and Chef Martell continued their friendly flirting.

"How're the oysters coming, Pod?" she called over. The mound of discarded shells next to him was steadily growing.

"Good, Chef!" he called back, never pausing, though he did keep glancing toward Margaery with a slightly furrowed brow. That made Brienne's own brow furrow, but she could only attribute it to Pod worrying that Margaery wasn't focused enough.

"Pod," she told him quietly as she moved past him on her way back to her butcher block, "eyes where the knife is, we can't have you bleeding into our appetizers."

The back of his neck went red and he murmured, "Yes, Chef," and redoubled his efforts, keeping his eyes resolutely trained on his work.

Since Chef Martell had drifted back to the judges' table and Margaery was done chopping, Brienne reassigned her to help Podrick with the shucking--she had a moment of self-doubt about whether oysters for a crowd was the best use of her resources, but it was too late to change course now--and poured stock and spices into her sweating vegetables, setting them to simmer before she started assembling the tomato sauce. It came together quickly: tomatoes, garlic, and shallots sauteed, then poured into a blender with honey, herbs, vinegar, and a generous sprinkling of dragon pepper flakes. Then, with a deep breath, Brienne headed for the antigriddle. Which she definitely knew how to use. In theory.

Experimentally, she poured a few small puddles of sauce onto the griddle and waited. Which was moderately agonizing, given that she was already about fifteen minutes and a few hours of sleep short of what she needed; still, watching the little pools gradually solidify on the frosty surface was, she had to admit, _ridiculously_ cool. No pun intended.

 _"What."_ That was Margaery, over Brienne's shoulder. "That is _awesome_."

Brienne turned to her with a grin. "Pretty great, right? What's the oyster status?"

"All good to go, Chef," Pod answered, appearing on her other side, trying and failing not to stare at their shiny new toy. 

"You two shucked a hundred oysters in twenty minutes? Do you see what amazing chefs I have on my team?" Brienne called out in the general direction of the universe, slightly high with adrenaline, and Pod and Margaery both beamed at her. "The soup needs a few more minutes, so let's get going on our plating, and then you two can come back here and take turns with this when we're ready."

After that, it was a mad dash to the finish: finishing the soup and getting it into the blast chiller to cool, slicing and toasting bread, grilling oysters, doing her best not to hover over the antigriddle like a caveperson discovering fire. The oysters went onto platters covered in a thick layer of sea salt, and each one sported its own frozen dollop of fiery sauce on top, ready to gradually melt and re-liquefy as the guests were served. The soup took more time, arranged in miniature bowls on larger platters, surrounded by a halo of grill-marked bread, each with a generous smear of red pepper sauce. 

The judges would taste first, so they had to make special plates for them, and they'd just barely managed sliding the last slices of bread into place when Chef Silverfist called out, "Time's up, Chefs! Step away from your stations."

Looking over what they'd just done, Brienne was proud and exhilarated and worried--were the two sauces too similar? Too spicy? Not spicy enough? Were the oysters overcooked?--and ready to collapse, utterly unsure of how she was going to face another round. But she wrapped Margaery and Pod in sweaty hugs and told them, "Thank you so much, I love you," before going to stand in front of the judges' table.

"So," said Chef Stark, giving both of them a bracing smile, "you survived the first round."

Brienne and Daenerys both laughed; even normally-unflappable Daenerys looked slightly disheveled, a few silvery-blonde hairs stuck to her forehead with sweat. And it seemed like she'd earned it: for her first dish, thick slices of dragon's egg cucumbers had been quick-pickled and grilled, then piled on top of small mounds of goat cheese, prepared using a trick that Brienne had forgotten about: mixing the cheese with water and freezing it yielded a block that could be scraped with a fork to yield powdery "snow." Her second dish was lamb and melon skewers, dusted with flakes of red pepper and mint, and served suspended on racks over slate platters with small piles of actual hot coals in their centers. 

_Damn_ , Brienne thought, impressed and annoyed about it. Hopefully her food would hold up, at least.

And sure enough, the judges' comments were exactly along the lines she'd predicted: they loved everything that Daenerys had done, except for the cucumbers lacking a bit in spice. Meanwhile, they praised Brienne's bold flavors, the silky texture of the soup, and the perfectly grilled oysters, but were underwhelmed by what they deemed a lack of creativity in her execution, especially since she'd done another seafood dish.

"You're very gifted," Chef Martell told her, his eyes serious, "but this is the finale. This is the time to go big! Take risks! Here there be dragons!" He gestured expansively at both her dishes and Daenerys', the contrast between the two painfully clear, and Brienne nodded and gritted her teeth against the hot rush of embarrassment and determination.

All of that suddenly became much less important, though, when there was a commotion behind them, and Brienne turned around to see Podrick rolling on the ground, one of his arms wreathed in flames.

"Pod!" she gasped, running for him as the crowd scattered and Chef Silverfist called for emergency assistance. By the time Brienne reached him and threw herself on the ground next to him, the flames were gone, and he was curled in on himself, his coat blackened at the edges where he'd had his sleeves rolled up, his face contorted in pain. 

"What happened?" That was the medics, one of them armed with a fire extinguisher, another one trying gently to get Podrick turned over so they could see the damage.

"One of the coals fell off a platter and started a tablecloth burning," Margaery said grimly. She was kneeling on his other side, stroking his hair away from his face. "He was the first to notice, and he just… dove right onto the flames to smother them."

"Pod, you brave idiot," Brienne told him, heart thundering, hardly aware of what she was saying.

"Sorry, Chef," he managed as they got him turned around so his head was in Margaery's lap and they could get his arm exposed. Brienne went weak with relief when she saw it wasn't as bad as she'd feared: there were angry blistered patches running from his hand halfway up to his elbow, but they looked red, not the ghostly white or, worse, the charred black of more severe burns. She looked to the medic for confirmation.

"He'll be all right," the medic assured her. "We just need to get him treatment as soon as possible to minimize scarring."

There were some murmurs a few feet away, and Brienne looked up to see one of the camera operators working their way through the circle of people surrounding where Podrick lay. And Brienne had grown fond of the whole crew, but still, "Back _off_ ," she snapped. "Let him breathe." She ripped off her microphone, and Pod's, bundling them both on the ground next to her. She didn't care what kinds of agreements they'd all signed, her friend's injury wasn't for public consumption. 

"Is it safe to move him?" she asked the medic, to be sure. She nodded, so Brienne carefully levered Pod's uninjured arm over her shoulder and helped him to a chair that someone had pulled up nearby.

"Are you in a lot of pain?" Margaery asked him, bringing him a glass of water. She'd taken off her microphone, too, in solidarity.

"I'm all right." As he sipped the water, his eyelids fluttered shut like it was the best thing he'd ever tasted. "Just need a few minutes and I'll be ready for round two."

Margaery gaped, and Brienne said instantly, "Podrick Payne. _No._ Absolutely not."

"I'm fine, just bandage me up and I'll be good to go!" he insisted, trying to stand, but the medics held him firmly in his seat.

"Pod," Brienne said, giving him as stern a look as she could given that his loyalty was cracking her heart open, "you've already done more than enough, and you heard what they said. You need treatment, or it'll scar, and you'll be dealing with that the rest of your life. And since I intend to hire you as my pastry chef at some point in the future, that means I'd have to deal with the guilt of that every day, and I'm sure as shit not doing that." That got a puff of laughter out of him, but there was still a stubborn set to his chin.

"I'm not leaving you short-handed, Chef," he told her, and Brienne shook her head, rueful and frustrated. This was a hell of a time for him to decide she wasn't the boss of him.

"Well, I'm short most of a hand, but can I offer any help?" came a too-familiar voice from behind her. 

And if Brienne's heart had cracked before, it shuddered and nearly shattered now. She found herself embodying the theme of the evening, frozen in place but with her entire body suddenly suffused with heat. She felt light-headed, disconnected, and she wondered for a minute if she'd fallen in the chaos and she was having some kind of hallucination as a result, but Pod and Margaery both had their eyes fixed on a spot behind her, wearing matching glares that put the ice dragon's to shame, so Brienne figured it was real enough.

She forced herself to turn around. Jaime looked… awful, objectively. His eyes were shadowed and red-rimmed, he hadn't shaved, obvious exhaustion had deepened the lines on his face, and his shirt was wrinkled. Irritatingly, even with all that, he was still the most beautiful man she'd ever seen, and his expression was a combination of regret, trepidation, and oh-so-tentative hope that wormed its way right through the walls she'd spent the last day ruthlessly building back up around her.

"What are you doing here?" she forced out of her dry throat.

"You can tell me to leave, and I will--no questions asked," he said quickly. "I've caused you enough trouble leading up to today. But I…" He trailed off, gave a wry laugh. "I worked up a whole speech on the way over here, but none of it seems to be coming to mind right now. I guess the short version is, I was so convinced that I was going to fuck up your life and be unworthy of you that I got a head start on fucking up and being unworthy, yesterday of all days, and I truly can't tell you how sorry I am. I… I'll regret it as long as I live." His eyes skimmed to one side and then the other, taking in Pod and Margaery and the small army of crew-members surrounding them all, then he hitched a shoulder and rushed on. "Right now, though, I'm not asking you to think about anything beyond the next hour. The last thing I want is to create more distraction for you. What matters most for now is that one of the best chefs--the best people--I've ever had the good fortune to know is within reach of something she desperately wants and entirely deserves, and even if I'm not the chef I used to be, I'm still in a position to help with that. And, as you said, it should be yours to decide what's best for you. So…" He spread his arms out in front of him, hands palm-up. "The fact is that I'd be honored to serve at your side. If, and only if, you'll have me."

Brienne just stared at him. She had plenty of experience with rejection; the person who had rejected her showing up the next day to beg her forgiveness, though, had only ever been a feature of her wish-fulfillment fantasies. In those fantasies, she'd typically ground her weeping suitor into the dust--literally or metaphorically--but watching Jaime, she didn't feel proud or haughty or even giddy with vindication, she just felt sad and angry and hurt, and hopeful in a way she was afraid to trust, like staring over the edge of a cliff and wondering if she'd discover she could fly.

If his prepared speech had contained more than the one he'd just delivered, she wasn't sure she would have been able to handle it.

"I don't even know that I'm allowed to--" she started, and then Chef Stark appeared at the edge of their small circle, silencing both Brienne and the whispers of the crew.

Chef Stark fixed Jaime with a steely gaze; he flushed and ducked his chin in a way that would have made Brienne laugh under other circumstances. "We've never had an assistant be unable to continue with the competition, so we don't have a protocol for this situation. But I've consulted with the rest of the judges, and we've agreed that if a suitable replacement can be found, we'll allow it." She looked at Brienne then, one eyebrow eloquently raised. "Have you found a suitable replacement, Chef Tarth?"

Brienne's heart was hammering against her ribs. She glanced at Pod and Margaery, but there was no help there; Pod gave her that steady look that said that whatever she decided would be best, and Margaery somehow managed to convey _it's your call but also I'm ready to rip him to shreds at the slightest indication from you_ with a twitch of her shoulder and a twist of her mouth. Brienne looked at Jaime, who was watching her like he was waiting for a well-deserved blow, his usual snarky detachment completely overwhelmed by a lethal earnestness that he rarely showed in public. She thought of Tyrion telling her, _I know him better than anyone, and I know that_. 

She breathed in and out. "I know we don't have much time, but can I talk to Daenerys for a minute, please?"

Chef Stark's eyebrow climbed even higher, but she nodded, and stepped back to make room for Brienne to cross the dais to where Daenerys was waiting on the far side, arms wrapped around herself.

"Is your friend all right?" Daenerys asked as she approached. "I wanted to check, but I didn't want to intrude. It seems like he's all right, isn't he?"

"He'll be fine as long as he gets treatment right away," Brienne assured her. "Someday he'll have a great story to tell, anyway."

Daenerys smiled with relief and nodded, and Brienne went on, "I was ready to just get on with this, but the judges agreed that I'm allowed to choose a replacement if I'd like, and I do have… an offer. From someone." She found herself reluctant to say his name; on the way over here, she'd wondered if she was doing this because she was hoping that Daenerys would say no and take the decision out of her hands. But now she realized that she wanted Jaime beside her, for the next hour at least, and she was very much hoping that Daenerys would agree to the arrangement. Still, she had to ask.

"I thought I saw Jaime Lannister over there," Daenerys said, too casually, watching Brienne with knowing eyes. Brienne could feel herself going red. _Let's pretend to be dating, he said. It'll be good publicity, he said_ , she thought ruefully. And now here she was with her actual love life playing out in front of the gods and everyone.

"I know you have history with him, and as of last night, you weren't prepared for him to be here," Brienne told Daenerys, ignoring her own embarrassment. "I wanted to make sure you were all right with him joining my team."

Daenerys tilted her head, appraising, and she gave Brienne that quizzical, half-astonished look that people did sometimes, like they couldn't quite believe she was for real. Then she swallowed, pulled her serious expression back on like a shield, and reached up to cover her microphone. "I don't condone what he did, all those years ago," she said finally. "But I understand why he did it. My father is… we're not… close." The shield cracked for a moment, and Brienne could see pain in her eyes. "I understand why he did it," she said again. "Though I think his methods could stand some re-examination."

Brienne snorted wryly. "Methods aren't always his strong point," she said, and Daenerys chuckled at that. "So you're all right with it?"

Daenerys gave her a sly grin. "When I beat both you and the Golden Lion, more glory to me, right?"

Glad to be in perfect accord with her opponent, at least, Brienne grinned back and held out her hand. "Good luck, Daenerys."

Daenerys shook it. "Good luck, Brienne. With everything."

"Mmm," was the only response Brienne could muster, and she made her way quickly back to where the rest of them were waiting. "Chef Stark, I'll accept Mr. Lannister in Podrick's place, if you'll allow it," she said, knowing as the words came out of her mouth that they were much more formal than was necessary but she was nervous, dammit. 

"I'll allow it," Chef Stark said with an amused tilt to her mouth, and then clapped her hands. "We'll need a coat and apron for Mr. Lannister," she called out, then told them all, "You have five minutes before we're rolling again," and Brienne nodded almost convulsively and turned to Pod.

"Will you go now?" she asked him, fond and exasperated, and he grinned, though the edges of it were tight with pain.

"Yes, Chef."

"I've got a car outside," Jaime said to Podrick as the medics finally let him stand. "It'll take you directly to one of the best maesters in the city. They'll take great care of you, and don't worry about costs, it's all covered."

"Thank you," Podrick told him, careful, clearly torn between gratitude and his loyalty to Brienne, and to be honest, Brienne was feeling pretty torn, herself. Because she had to admit that right this second, Jaime was making it very difficult to completely hate him.

 _Whatever. Pod will be safe, that's what matters._ Brienne wrapped Podrick in a hug, mindful of his injured arm. "Thank you," she told him, tears pricking yet again as she thought about him braving about a dozen things he hated in order to be here for her. After today, she was swearing off crying for a month. "I can't tell you what it means to me that you'd do this for me."

"Of course," he said against her shoulder, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, hugging her back with his good arm.

When Brienne pulled back, Margaery stepped in from where she'd been waiting off to the side. She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, seemed to get stuck, and eventually just grabbed Pod by the ears and planted a kiss square on his lips. He immediately turned sunset red and his mouth dropped open, flapping like a fish on dry land, and Brienne wasn't far behind him in astonishment.

"What in all the hells was that?" Brienne asked as the medics led a stumbling Pod away. Margaery just grinned, though she had spots of pink burning high on her cheeks, too. 

"What? We spent a lot of time together while you were gone, watching your episodes. And he was very heroic today. I thought he deserved a reward." She looked at Brienne from under her eyelashes, and went on more quietly, "And after all the assholes I've dated, I thought maybe I did, too."

Brienne shook her head, trying to rearrange her world around this news. "Well. He won't need any pain meds for a while, that's for sure," she said, and hooked an arm around Margaery's shoulders while her friend cackled.

"Are you sure about this, Brie?" Margaery asked, both of them watching Jaime shrug on the coat someone had found for him. "I mean, I'm not trying to convince you either way, I'm just asking where you're at with it."

"I have no idea," Brienne admitted quietly. Jaime's eyes met hers across the space between them; he froze where he stood, and there it was again, that terrifying admiration just shining out of him, unguarded. Brienne shivered.

Margaery nudged Brienne with her hip. "I'll give him this--he does give pretty good grand gesture, for an asshole," she said, and hopped up to kiss Brienne on the cheek.

"Good gods, are you just kissing everyone today, you hussy?" Brienne asked her, some of the tension flowing out of her on a laugh, which she was sure had been Margaery's intention.

"Nope," Margaery said, unrepentant as always, "just my favorites," and she went off to have her hair smoothed before they started again. 

That left Brienne with Jaime, who came over to join her, tying on his apron as he walked. "Thank you," was all he said, though much more than that was in his eyes.

And Brienne was well aware that it was a terrible idea to get into it now, but in a second, they'd both be mic'ed up, and all the upheaval combined with lack of sleep had burst the lid off her barely-contained emotions. She had to know. "Are you here because she asked you to leave?" she gritted out, bracing herself for the answer.

Jaime shook his head sharply, almost desperately. "No. Actually, she wanted me to stay--I just realized that this was where I should have been all along. Brienne--"

But then the crew arrived with mic packs for both of them, and all Brienne could do was try to take measured breaths and imagine that all the roiling inside her was nothing more than the ocean, rolling and out until it smoothed itself over the sand.

"All right, chefs," Chef Martell told them once they'd reconvened, "Time for round two. Since you both earned the advantage in the semifinal, this time you've got an hour to finish off our ice and fire feast. One entree, one dessert, enough to feed us all. Leave it all out there, chefs. Your time starts… now!"

"All right," Brienne told Jaime and Margaery as when they reached her station. "The plan this time is pretty simple. We need something that will scale well and quickly, so I'm going with harissa chicken thighs with yogurt sauce over sweet potatoes. Dessert will be…" She paused for a few seconds, debating, then decided, "We can do semifreddo in the blast chiller and we won't need to fight Daenerys for the ice cream machine. Ginger, for the fire element, and champagne, because why the hell not. I'm pretty sure I saw some dome-shaped molds over there; we'll make them in those. Got it?"

"Yes, Chef," her assistants replied, and Brienne couldn't help it; the banked heat in Jaime's eyes when he said it made answering heat pool low in her stomach. She cleared her throat and fled for the pantry.

When she'd gathered up fresh and candied ginger, vanilla beans, sugar, sweet potatoes, harissa, cucumbers, and herbs, she found Jaime at the refrigerator, a basket hooked over his right arm. It was packed to the brim with chicken thighs and yogurt as well as milk, cream, and eggs for the semifreddo.

"Thank you," she said, blinking in surprise, and he just nodded and headed back to her station. She shook her head to clear it. _Focus._

"I'll get the marinade going for the chicken," she said. "Margaery, you're on candied ginger duty. We'll need a couple of cups, and about half a cup of grated fresh ginger, so… sorry in advance." Chopping candied ginger was something of a sticky, tedious nightmare, but Margaery only winked and saluted and took the pile of ginger from her. "Jaime…" Brienne hesitated, unsure what he'd be comfortable with.

"You need those leeks chopped?" he asked, tilting his head toward where they were sitting on the butcher block.

She nodded. "Yes."

"You got it, Chef," and he was off, steadying them with his injured hand while he chopped carefully yet confidently with his left, the leek falling into neat lines as he worked.

Something squeezed in Brienne's chest, and she blamed the harissa for the sudden burn in her eyes. 

Refocusing, she managed to get her chicken thighs and potatoes marinating in a paste of harissa, olive oil, cumin, and salt and pepper; she sealed packet after packet of them in the vacuum-sealer to force the flavor as deeply into the meat as possible, given her limited time. When she was done with that, she started in on the base for her semifreddo, scraping the vanilla beans into a large pot with milk and sugar, and pouring the better part of two bottles of champagne into another pot to start reducing it.

"What's next, Chef?" Jaime asked, presenting himself at her side. 

"Can you dice the cucumbers for the yogurt sauce?"

"Already done, Chef." He was obviously trying very hard for serious and professional, but there was a faint hint of puppydog lurking around his expression, hoping for her approval, and she couldn't help melting a bit. 

She raised an eyebrow at him as she gently swirled the pot of champagne, watching it bubble. "What if I didn't want it diced?"

"Then I'd go get you more," he answered; she could almost see the calculations happening in his head, trying to determine what kind of ground he was on, here.

"And if they didn't have more? What would we do then, Mr. Initiative?" she pressed. Her milk was almost boiling, but not quite; she had a few seconds yet.

A tentative smile quirked the corners of his mouth. "Well, then I'd have to climb the tallest cucumber tree in the land to get them for you, Chef." That last was said in the tone he usually reserved for _my lady_ , and Brienne snorted to cover her internal swoon. How could she miss something so much after only twenty-four hours?

"It's a miracle you graduated culinary school, if that's what you know about cucumbers," she told him, and that only reminded her of the scholarship, the scholarship he'd wanted to make sure she knew about even as he was making his way back to her, and _dammit_. She'd be angry at him again later, she decided; right now, she'd let herself fall into it, let this experience be how she'd imagined it.

In the meantime, she could tell he was struggling mightily to restrain a cucumber-related innuendo, so she decided to make it worse for him.

"Whip the cream, please, and the egg whites, separately. Soft peaks." She said it lightly, but there was a quick flare of heat in his eyes, and he grinned with something that looked very close to joy.

"Yes, Chef. Right away, Chef."

He started off, but as long as they were doing this, she might as well take advantage of having him and his experience available to her in the flesh instead of just in her head. "Wait." 

He immediately stopped in his tracks, giving her a wary look like he expected to be dismissed on the spot.

"I have an idea," she said. It had occurred to her while she was stirring the milk, but she wasn't sure if they had time to pull it off.

His answer was immediate. "Do it. Trust your instincts."

Warmth bloomed in the heart of her. "I'm thinking chocolate shells for the semifreddo. Marbled white and dark chocolate, to look like the rocks on the beach on Tarth. Then we light rum on fire and pour it over them, and the chocolate melts over the semifreddo." She grinned, the picture becoming clearer in her mind. "Bonfire on the beach. And if we're very, very lucky, maybe we'll even have time to make shortbread cookies. A little sandy element to complete the effect."

His smile mirrored hers, and he opened his mouth to say something more, until Chef Sliverfist strolled over. And though she was eyeing the two of them, all she said was, "Change of plans, Chef?" which probably meant they hadn't gotten good audio of her explanation to Jaime. So Brienne reiterated the plan as she moved to the next step of her zabaglione, while Jaime busied himself with his soft peaks and Margaery fought her way through the candied ginger hell Brienne had condemned her to. 

In every competition segment so far, the clock had seemed to skip at least every other second, and this last round was the worst of all: every time Brienne looked up, more time had slipped away from them, and the things she had yet to do seemed to have multiplied. She nearly dropped a pan full of chicken on the floor; the first round of chocolate shells they made were too thin and had to be thrown out; there was a terrifying moment when it seemed like the semifreddi were going to be stuck in their molds forever, and to make it worse, Chef Stark happened to be visiting Brienne's station at the time, silently watching over their struggles like a mother over hapless pups. All of it had Brienne eyeing the rum with increasing temptation. 

And yet, every time she turned to start a new task, Jaime or Margaery was there, ready to assist. She never had to give an instruction more than once, and in Jaime's case, he kept anticipating her needs, slipping easily into any gaps between her and what she needed done. At one point he even caught a rolling onion that had slipped off Daenerys' butcher block and presented it back to her with a bow and a _"Valar dohaeris"_ that made both her and Brienne burst into much-needed laughter. It was slightly eerie and also utterly saved Brienne's ass, and somehow, miraculously, everything came together just in the final seconds.

After Chef Martell called time, Brienne surveyed their work--vibrant orange-red chicken thighs and potatoes dotted with cool yogurt, dozens of small marbled domes just waiting to reveal their secrets, golden shortbread cookies spilling a few crumbs on separate plates below--and it hit her that this was it, she was done, and she very nearly burst into tears. She threw her arms around Margaery instead, and promised, "I owe you a spa day, a new dress, a week's worth of dinners, whatever you want," and Margaery laughed and said, "Shut up, I love you," and gave her another loud kiss on the cheek. 

When Brienne released Margaery, Jaime was there, uncertainty under his company smile, and Brienne teetered for a few long seconds--sure, _now_ time slowed down--between hug and handshake before deciding, _fuck it, trust your instincts_ and wrapping her arms around him, too. She felt as well as heard his breath go out of him in a ragged rush, and his left hand curled into a fist at her back, the material of her coat gathered tight into his fingers, holding her as if he wanted to fuse them together like iron in the heat of a forge. He smelled like sweat and ginger and dozens of nights in his kitchen or hers, pushing her, watching her, listening to her. Hyper-aware of the cameras, she broke off the embrace much sooner than she wanted to, every millimeter of her skin aching for the warmth of his.

The judges were waiting, though, and she only had time for a quick, nervous hug with Daenerys before they had to present their dishes. Daenerys had made a tender-looking halibut with a spicy celery-root remoulade and tomato granita; her dessert was a black cardamom and black pepper ice cream spiked with flame-shaped, lime-zest-infused tuile. It all looked beautiful, and Brienne hoped she'd get to try the ice cream herself, assuming she didn't actually die of nervous anticipation first. 

The judges gave their typical mix of feedback calibrated to keep the viewers guessing: they thought Daenerys' halibut was cooked perfectly and Brienne's yogurt sauce had a bit too much lemon; they thought Daenerys' tuile was barely overbaked and raved over Brienne's bonfire-on-the-beach concept. 

" _This_ is what I've been waiting for from you," Chef Martell told her, beaming with pride that didn't even have a hint of innuendo in it, and Brienne tucked that away in her heart to keep no matter what happened next. 

And then there was nothing to do but wait while their fates were decided and the crowd was served, hopefully without anything bursting into unauthorized flames this time. Feeling like she was about to come out of her skin, Brienne went back to stand with Jaime and Margaery, which plunged her into an entirely different kind of agony. All of her blood had been humming ever since she'd touched Jaime, and now, in the vacuum of waiting, when he was close enough that she could feel the heat pouring off him, see the glow in his eyes that she knew all too well at this point, it was torture not to even be able to speak to him without it being recorded for half the continent to hear. She found herself wishing that they could slip away unnoticed, just for a moment, just long enough for her to get one answer, at least, while she was waiting for the other, and--

"Excuse me!" A voice rang out from somewhere in the crowd. Necks craned and murmurs started up, and after a few seconds the crowd parted to reveal none other than Tyrion. Brienne peered suspiciously at Jaime, but he looked as surprised as she was, then just shrugged one shoulder as if to say _I'm not his keeper_.

"I'm so sorry," Tyrion was saying loudly to the nearest crew-member, "but I think I've found a bone in my fish, could you possibly have someone take a look at it for me?" He glanced in Jaime and Brienne's direction, jerked his head to the side, then returned his attention to the crowd, most of whom were suddenly focused on him. "I know it's inconvenient, but since we're just waiting on the judges anyway... I had a piece of bone go down the wrong way at some point and it scraped my throat like you wouldn't believe, and you know how my father would react if I was injured during filming…" 

At that point, Brienne stopped listening, because Jaime, barely-leashed tension in every line of him, abruptly turned to her and said, "Chef Tarth, may I have a word with you?"

Brienne blinked, and darted a look at Margaery.

"Go," Margaery hissed. "What are they going to do, start without you?" With that, she headed off in Tyrion's direction, calling out, "Can I help you, Mr. Lannister?" as she approached the curious throng.

Technically, Brienne guessed they could decide she'd forfeited, but that would be an anticlimactic ending that she was pretty sure the producers wouldn't approve of, so. "Certainly," she said to Jaime as casually as she could, which was the same approximate level as making a giant neon sign that said I'M BEING CASUAL. Well, she'd had a very full day, she was cutting herself some slack. 

"Excellent," Jaime answered equally casually, yanking off his microphone as she did the same, and they walked quickly toward one of the side chambers.

He rounded on her as soon as they were out of sight of the cameras, curling his hand around her elbow. "By the Warrior, I'm so proud of you, that was so--" 

"Wait." She stepped back and held up a hand. "I need to know two things: why did you leave, and why did you come back?"

He took a deep breath and swallowed hard. "All right. What I told you before was true: I got scared. That stupid news spot we saw in the restaurant fucked me up, because it fucked _you_ up, and I couldn't stop thinking about how it was my fault, how if you were with a better man, none of it would have happened and you could have just been happy. I mean, what advantages can I bring to this partnership? Infamy? Vicious rumors? My even more vicious family? Hardly a great deal for you," he said with a bitter laugh.

"Jaime," she started, chest aching with her own frustration, with the thought of him being raised to believe that's what love meant, "it's not--"

"Please, just let me finish," he interrupted. "Everything I just said--that's why I left. I came back because… because all my life I've been going back to Cersei, so when I thought I shouldn't get to have you, that's what I did. Only this time, I got there and realized I couldn't go back, because the place I used to go to isn't there anymore. _I'm_ not there anymore. And that wasn't because I changed myself to win you, it was because just knowing you're in the world has changed me, made me believe in things I let myself give up on years ago. I'd convinced myself that nothing mattered, because it was easier than trying and taking the risk of failing. And yet here you are, taking half a dozen risks at once so that you can do something good in the world, and it's fucking _humbling_ , Brienne. And it's why we all adore you, by the way, from Catelyn Stark down to the the barista who fills in on Pod's off days."

Her throat was clogged with tears, all her careful defenses utterly overmatched by the onslaught of his sincerity. "Jaime," was all she could say, reaching out to lay her fingers along his cheek. Her impulse was to deny it, disbelieve it, but if she believed she deserved to take up space, then that meant this, too, the space she occupied in his life. And if the way he was looking at her was a lie, then truth itself had no meaning.

He closed his eyes at her touch, and when he opened them, they were burning like a signal fire again, illuminating her way home. "Listen, I'm a bad bargain. I know that. I can be irrational and impulsive and I don't know anything about anything resembling healthy relationships. But I want to do some good with my life, do something meaningful, and though I'd still want to do that even if you never spoke to me again, the thing is that I also happen to be fairly desperately in love with you. And _that's_ the advantage I bring to this, Brienne, that's the only thing I have to offer: I love you. More than I have words to tell you. And given that you're the best person I've ever met, if I'm going to do good in the world, I figure I couldn't do much better than to do it at your side, and do everything I can to deserve you in the process."

"See, you had a rough start, and then you were doing so well in the middle there, and then you fucked it up again right at the end," Brienne told him with a watery laugh, grabbing his collar with one hand and shaking him a little. "You put people up on pedestals, and then you hate yourself for not living up to them. And then you make _extremely terrible_ decisions and prove yourself right." He snorted ruefully, painfully at that. "But I don't want a penitent or a protector," she went on, "I want a partner. One like the man I've seen these past couple of months, one who might be irrational and impulsive, but who's also kind and determined and loyal, fierce in defending the things and people he cares about and softer-hearted than he wants anyone to know. And most of all..." and she paused, expecting to have to shove herself over the edge, but in the end, it was as easy as stepping through a doorway. "Most of all, I don't want you talking like that about the man I love."

After she said it, she got to watch it slowly penetrate his fog of self-condemnation, watch incredulous joy light his eyes and then his entire face, like a gas flame catching. "Say that again," he demanded, sounding breathless.

She laughed, letting it fountain out of her loud and bright, not caring who might hear it. "I said I love you. May all the gods help me." 

His lips curved. "I'm so sorry, I don't think I quite got that, could you--"

"Let me say it a different way," she suggested, and yanked him in for a kiss.

She had no idea how long it went on, with the hard, warm planes of his body pressed tight against hers, his hands roaming eagerly, possessively, tenderly, all while he murmured apologies and love and promises into every tiny space between their mouths. She knew they had to get back, but she kept telling herself, _just a few more seconds, just one more kiss_ , until she heard Tyrion's voice coming toward them, close to a shout.

"I'm sure they've just gotten lost in this maze of rooms, it could happen to anyone, you know. I'm sure they aren't anything but focused on the _very important competition_ with _lots of cameras_ that's happening just outside--"

They managed to spring apart and straighten their clothes just before Tyrion appeared in the doorway, Chef Silverfist right behind him.

"Ah, there you are," said Tyrion. "No need to call anyone else, Jaime, they examined my fish for bones and I'm perfectly safe."

"Bones?" Jaime said blankly, and Brienne dug her elbow into his side where she hoped no one could see.

"We're so glad," she told Tyrion, giving Chef Silverfist a smile for good measure. "We came in here to try to find a, um…" She trailed off, her brain running on fumes.

"An expert," Jaime supplied. "We were trying to get in touch with an expert. To help. With the bones."

Chef Silverfist was watching them with a raised eyebrow and an indulgent smile, and Brienne's face felt like it had been scorched by dragonfire.

Tyrion gave both Brienne and Jaime a long-suffering look that seemed to have had a lot of practice. "Let's return, shall we? I'm dying to find out how this all ends," he said, offering his arm to Chef Silverfist, who accepted it with a very interesting blush, and they all started back toward the dais.

"A _bone expert_?" Brienne repeated to Jaime under her breath, giddy laughter trying to fight its way to the surface.

"At least I came up with a complete sentence," Jaime retorted. "But yes, surprisingly, for all the experience I've had sneaking around, I never did quite get the hang of it." His tone was light, but there was a slight twist to his mouth that made Brienne wince. Both of them had scars, and they'd have to be careful with each other. This wasn't the time or place to press it, though, so she just reached out and gave his shoulder a quick squeeze as they walked.

Margaery was waiting for them back at Brienne's station, curiosity written all over her face like a signboard. Jaime tipped her a wink, and Margaery's answering grin was so wide that it seemed like it could stretch across the entire pit. She grabbed Brienne for a brief, hard hug before Brienne went to stand next to Daenerys, who was already in place in front of the judges' table.

"So kind of you to join us," said Chef Stark, sharp with a barely detectable undercurrent of fondness that told Brienne she hadn't completely ruined her chances. "We thought maybe you'd gotten lost."

Brienne squared her shoulders and stood as straight as she possibly could, like a consummate professional and not at all like someone who had just taken a short break to make out with her boyfriend in a side chamber. Given how her attempts at an explanation had gone in said chamber, she didn't even try, just went with, "Yes, Chef. Sorry, Chef."

"Are we rolling?" Chef Martell asked, and on confirmation that they were, he leaned forward in his chair and folded his arms on the table in front of him. "Chef Tarth and Chef Targaryen, we want you to know that you should be extremely proud of everything you've presented to us tonight, and in this entire competition up to this point. You've made this a very difficult decision for us."

Brienne looked over at Daenerys, and they exchanged brief, tense smiles. Daenerys' hands were clasped in front of her, her knuckles even whiter than the pale skin around them.

"We also want you to know how pleased we are at how much you've grown over the past several weeks; neither of you is the same chef who walked in on that first day, which is one of my favorite aspects of this event." Chef Silverfist beamed softly at them both.

"But we did ultimately come to a decision," Chef Stark said, and this was it; Brienne's heart started hammering so hard she was worried she wouldn't be able to hear Chef Stark's voice over it. "The winner of this year's _Game of Chefs_ , and the twenty-five thousand dragon prize, is… Chef Brienne Tarth."

For a stretched-out moment, sight and sound faded and coalesced into a single colorless whoosh, like being in the eye of a hurricane; when everything crashed back in again, it was bright and loud and joyous, Margaery squealing and hugging her, Jaime whooping in victory, all three judges smiling and applauding. Pod, his arm swathed in bright bandages, appeared out of nowhere to hurl himself into the hug as well, and over his shoulder, Brienne could see Daenerys, who--despite her obvious disappointment--was smiling up into Missandei's eyes, their foreheads pressed together while Missandei's mouth moved in what Brienne could only assume were assurances of faith and love. 

Speaking of which, Brienne turned to locate Jaime, who was hovering just out of range, hands in his pockets like he had to keep them there in order to keep them under control. His eyes were glittering, watching her with blatant adoration while confetti rained down around them all. She wondered why he was keeping his distance, uncertainty starting to leak in at the edges of her happiness, until she saw him glance at the cameras, remembered him saying _I never did quite get the hang of it_.

Well. If nothing else, this entire enterprise had proven that both of them were useless at subterfuge; they hadn't even been able to keep up a fake relationship without it turning real on them. 

That being the case, she took his face between her hands and gave him a resounding kiss, cameras be damned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *RAINS DOWN CONFETTI ON YOU ALL* I will save my gooshiest gooshiness for the actual end, but again, thanks to all of you who made it this far! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
> 
> And thank you, also, to my wonderful friend Rose Lerner (who writes [amazing, witty, fascinating, swoonworthy, mostly-Regency romances](http://www.roselerner.com/) that you should absolutely read), for having the idea of Pod being heroically injured as a way to ease him gently out of the competition, and for sending me a link to an article about "hot and cold" recipes that FINALLY got me going on the right track after having spent roughly seventeen billion hours trying to find dishes that would fit the challenge requirements, the time requirements, and the characters. (I still spent about five billion hours AFTER that looking for things, but it really helped crystallize what I was looking for.)
> 
> If anyone is interested in recipes for any of the things here, I'm happy to share the ones I found, but I haven't made any of them before, so I can't guarantee them. But they sounded tasty! (That said, I make ginger cookies every year for the holidays and they require a bunch of chopped candied ginger and I was in the throes of that while writing this chapter, so I just want you to know that the feelings herein about chopping candied ginger come from my SOUL, and also from the knife blister on my index finger.)
> 
> Oh, and I realize that I have played very fast and very loose with the realities of reality TV, here, but. Since that's not ultimately the point of the story, I hope you'll forgive the poetic license! And finally, just a random note that when I started this story, I had no intention of pairing up Pod and Margaery. But writing the scene with them and Brienne in the coffee shop, with her teasing him, and thinking about Pod's sweetness (and magic cock) and Margaery's worldliness/terrible luck with men, AND given the fact that Sansa is barely in this story so it would have been difficult to hook her up with Margaery, the Pod/Margaery just sort of... happened. So. Be happy, you crazy kids! 😁
> 
> ANYWAY. Epilogue forthcoming in a few days!


	13. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Well, look who finally decided to show up!" Brienne called out as Jaime came through the front door of her kitchen into warmth and the smell of tomatoes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some shameless denouement fluff! (ETA: if you would like more denouement fluff and also some smut when you're done with this, there's now a deleted scene added as the next chapter.)

"Well, look who finally decided to show up!" Brienne called out as Jaime came through the front door of her kitchen into warmth and the smell of tomatoes.

"Sorry," he told her, shrugging out of his coat and reaching for one of the aprons hanging on the wall, "I got tied up at the Institute." The Evenstar Scholarship had remained an anonymous endowment as far as he knew, but he'd approached them directly, too, to ask about teaching the occasional class there, and to his utter shock, they'd been glad to have him.

"Everything okay?" Brienne asked as she turned back to the cured meat she was slicing.

"There was a bechamel incident that I'd prefer not to re-live," Jaime informed her with a shudder, and she laughed.

Margaery beckoned him over to where a large stockpot was simmering gently on the stove. "C'mere, J.Lan, try this."

"'Chef Lannister' when we're in the kitchen," Brienne reminded her with transparently false disapproval, like she always did, and Margaery nodded with transparently false earnestness, like she always did. Their little dance complete, Margaery offered him a spoonful of sauce while he finished rolling up his sleeves.

He blew on it, then sipped it: he got the tang of tomato, obviously; a rich undercurrent of fat that suggested they'd fortified the sauce with chicken wings; red pepper; a bright burst of lemon; and… "Is that cardamom?"

Margaery slapped her hand down on the counter. "Dammit!"

"Did he get it?" That was Podrick, coming out of the back with a bag of cornmeal. Jaime's stomach growled, hoping that meant forthcoming pizza. They'd had a kids' class in the previous day, and he'd come in to shrieks of laughter and the smell of sauce and cheese; he'd been craving it ever since.

"Yes," Margaery pouted. "Brienne, your boyfriend is extremely annoying."

"Extremely," Brienne agreed, "but he's pretty, so we keep him around."

"That's Chef Boyfriend to you," Jaime told Margaery loftily, and she rolled her eyes so hard he was a little worried they'd get lost back there.

"Did you try the sausage, Chef Lannister?" Podrick asked him. "Lyanna made it, along with the Night's Watch." 

"Really?" The Night's Watch was a group of local boys who had, thanks to Brienne's careful hints, decided they wanted to try their hands at making their own charcuterie, and Lyanna Mormont happened to be the first-ever recipient of the Evenstar Scholarship. She was barely eighteen, but she took absolutely no shit from anyone, and she scared Jaime more than every member of the Night's Watch combined. He adored her. She tolerated him, and worshiped Brienne even though she tried valiantly to hide it under a thick layer of teenage disaffectedness, so it all worked out.

"Here," Brienne said, and slipped a piece of sausage into his mouth.

The sausage was delicious, but the obvious phallic associations combined with Brienne's nearness, and the fact that he hadn't seen her since she'd rolled sleepy-eyed and sated out of their bed at her typical offensive hour of the morning, had his brain--well, some part of his body, anyway--running along different lines. "Chef Tarth," he said, keeping a straight face with an effort, "can I see you in your office? I have an important matter to discuss with you." Logic dictated that someday he would stop feeling like a horny teenager around her, but then again, logic had never heard the sounds she made when he sank inside her, either.

"Ugh," Margaery groaned, "to think there was a time I wanted to hear _more_ about your sex life."

"There was?" That was intriguing, but Brienne had him by the front of his apron and was tugging him toward the swinging door.

"Stay out of the pantry this time, Chefs, I just got everything put back together in there!" Podrick called after them, faintly despairing, and Jaime could just make out Margaery's voice cooing comfortingly to him before the door swung closed.

Brienne had focused most of her prize money on the customer-facing areas of the kitchen, meaning that her office was still something of a work in progress, including the fact that she currently didn't so much have a door as a roughly door-sized piece of plywood that could be propped up in the frame. Jaime kicked it most of the way into place before pressing Brienne back against the wall, feeling all of her firm ropes of muscle and slight, sweet curves shifting against him as he kissed her hungrily.

"Pod's right about the pantry," she managed, panting, when he mouthed his way to the warm, secret spot where her jaw met her neck. "We can't be violating food safety regulations in a place of business."

"Oh, please, there wasn't even any nudity, we just knocked a few things off the shelves," he scoffed against her skin. "Besides, it was your idea."

She gasped and shoved him back, though her fingers fisted into his shirt as she did. "It was not!"

Well, it had been worth a try. "All right, fine, but the alley was your idea."

And she was already flushed, but she went scarlet at the reminder. "It was dark. And I'd had a very hard day."

"So you wanted a very hard night, I get it," he said, because far be it from him to scorn the low-hanging fruit. And he was, in fact, getting very hard, remembering the way she'd practically climbed him as soon as they'd gotten outside, the pale column of her throat picking up the faintest glow of moonlight as he'd fucked her against the brick. 

He hated when Brienne had bad days, but he couldn't say he minded being in a position to make them better.

She groaned at his joke and shoved him back again, with more force this time, until the backs of his thighs hit the front of her desk.

"Besides," she said, "whatever the opposite of food safety regulations is, that's what's going on in that alley," and he couldn't help but agree with that, or at least he would have if he hadn't been intent on clearing off a space on her desk so she didn't end up cursing them both later for messing up her neat piles of paperwork. He was already picturing it, her riding him with the cheap fluorescent light making a halo of her hair, or maybe he'd spread her across the desk while he ate her out, her long legs draped over his shoulders, her underwear dangling off one ankle--

That was when one particular sheet of paper caught his attention. 

"What's this?" he asked, pulling it out of the pile.

"Nothing," she said quickly, "it's not done yet," and she tried to snatch it from him, but she clearly wasn't trying her hardest, because he managed to keep it away from her long enough to get a good look.

It was a sketch, still rough but obviously professional, of a stylized lion, mane waving, with a many-pointed star shining above it, all enclosed inside a flaming sun.

"What is this?" he asked again, unable to take his eyes off of it. Off of what he hardly dared to hope it meant.

"It's a logo for the kitchen," she said softly. "I've been working with Sansa on it. Do you like it?"

"I…" He trailed off. Her eyes were huge and brilliant, her teeth worrying the edge of her lip. "But it's _your_ kitchen," he said finally. 

Her mouth twisted. "Jaime," she said, in the fond, exasperated tone she seemed to save especially for him. "We both know better than that." Then she reached out to slide her fingers through his hair, beaming quietly at him until he thought he knew exactly how the paper lion felt, bathed in all that bright warmth, looking up at his guiding star.

At the end of the day, when it really mattered, he'd always been better with actions than with words, so he just leaned in and kissed her: carefully, thoroughly, like a vow.

When he pulled back, her cheeks were pink and her smile was incandescent. "So you _do_ like it."

"I like it even better than your cioppino," he told her, and she laughed as he hitched her up onto the desk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaand we're out*! I can't thank you all enough for being willing to go along on this journey with me. Those of you who commented on multiple chapters are SAINTS--there is so much (fantastic!) fic in this fandom and so little time and so the fact that you made space for that in your busy lives is just so incredible and I appreciate it so much! And anyone who commented, kudos-ed, bookmarked, recced: you are GEMS. This fic was challenging for me in sooooo many ways: it's my first fic in a new fandom (and the first fic I've actually finished in a few years), it's almost three times as long as anything I've written before, I don't usually do extensive AUs... so even though I've been writing fic for mumblety years, really at no point during this particular process did I actually feel like I knew what I was doing. 😂 So knowing that people were enjoying it and invested in it has been such a joy!
> 
> Thanks to my brother for chef-ing consultation (I wish y'all could get to enjoy his cooking, it's fantastic), and to Rose and dugrival and all my friends who listened to me yammer about this story, even if you weren't in this fandom!
> 
> And of course I can't wrap this up without another enormous thank-you to SD Wolfpup. She talked me down off any number of ledges, read slight variations on the same thing multiple times, gave me pep talks, made me laugh, gave me excellent ideas and suggestions, and just generally made this whole thing better (in addition to, you know, possible at all) with her skill and enthusiasm and support. I'm lucky to have shared more than a few fandoms with SDW over the decade-plus(!) that we've been friends, and it never stops being THE MOST FUN. Y'all know she's an amazing writer/vidder but she's an equally amazing person, and I'm so so glad and lucky to have her in my life. (Not to mention being very glad that her Jaime/Brienne squee dragged me into all this in the first place. 😁)
> 
> ANYWAY. Thanks again to all of you for making my first fic in this fandom such a great experience, as well as for being so talented and bringing so many glorious, inspiring, glee-inducing things to the fandom. ❤️ I'm happy to be here!
> 
> *ETA for anyone reading a chapter at a time: deleted scene added to this 1/28/20. 😁


	14. Deleted Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _As Jaime approached Brienne's kitchen, he could see the front door was propped open, and a distinctly awful sort of of sweet-sour smoke smell drifted to his nose. His heart rate spiking, he hurried inside to find the battered oven gaping open as well, a charred mound of what he assumed was baking soda piled up at the bottom. Aside from the empty beer glasses and decimated appetizer trays still lying out on the counters, though, and the smell that he could feel seeping into his hair even as he stood, there didn't appear to be any further damage, and he breathed a sigh of relief._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SO. When SD Wolfpup was beta-ing the epilogue of this story, she noted the passing reference to alley sex and informed me that good writers _show_ , they don't just _tell_ , so. As I always do, I took her sage advice to heart and wrote her what I meant to be a quick deleted scene, but instead turned into like 5700 words of porn and schmoop. Mostly porn, if we're being honest, but there's definitely some tooth-rotting fluff in here as well. So, unbeta-ed (because I didn't want to ask her to put in any work on it), for SD Wolfpup, with love, because what greater love is there than this: to write alley sex porn for one's friends.

As Jaime approached Brienne's kitchen, he could see the front door was propped open, and a distinctly awful sort of of sweet-sour smoke smell drifted to his nose. His heart rate spiking, he hurried inside to find the battered oven gaping open as well, a charred mound of what he assumed was baking soda piled up at the bottom. Aside from the empty beer glasses and decimated appetizer trays still lying out on the counters, though, and the smell that he could feel seeping into his hair even as he stood, there didn't appear to be any further damage, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Still, it wasn't like Brienne to leave a mess unattended, and that worried him; sure enough, when he found her in her office, she was jabbing at the keys of her laptop with vengeful fingers.

He knocked gently on the doorframe and kept his voice soft. "Brienne? Are you all right?"

She still jumped a bit, but when she swiveled in her chair and saw him, the relief that mingled with the exhaustion on her face went right to his heart. "Hi," she said. "Will you please stab me in the eyeball? Just take this pen--" she brandished it--"and jam it right in there, put me out of my misery."

He chuckled in sympathy as he came over to lean back against the front of her desk, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear as an excuse for his thumb to linger over her cheekbone. "What the hell happened out there?" he asked as he rolled up his sleeves in preparation for whatever she needed.

Her bark of a laugh was all gallows humor. "Well, let's start at the beginning. First of all, I found out this morning that the tile that was supposed to be here tomorrow now won't be here until next week, which means we have to delay the cooler delivery, which means I'm not sure where we're going to put all the food for Olenna's birthday party. But," and she stabbed a sarcastic finger into the air, "that just the fun stuff for the future. The fun stuff for _today_ was that it turns out the beer-and-baking group who was in here earlier had a little too much of the former and not enough of the latter and ended up dripping butter all over the oven. And butter, as you may know, is flammable. When it caught fire, they then opened up the oven--just to make sure it had plenty of oxygen--and tried to douse it with beer. Which, as you may also know, is not _un_ flammable, and certainly doesn't help with grease fires. Smells fantastic, though, when it's scorched."

"Oh, love." Jaime rubbed a comforting hand up and down her arm, and she leaned into it.

"I left them alone for _five minutes_ to take a delivery," she wailed, despairing. "And then," she went on, building up even more of a head of steam, "I had to contact everyone who was signed up for class tonight and tell them we had to cancel because our oven has mysteriously stopped working after being, you know, _filled with flames_ , and now I'm worried we're going to have to buy a new one after all."

Jaime winced; that was the worst news yet. Despite her prize money, Brienne--with, as he knew well, her soft spot for lost and broken things--had insisted on trying to rehabilitate the dilapidated oven rather than just buying a new one. He hated to see her disappointed.

"And after all that," Brienne went on, turning back to the keyboard with her teeth half-bared in a snarl, "I still have to deal with rescheduling the _fucking_ cooler delivery."

The hell she did. "Brienne." Jaime slipped behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, digging his thumbs into the tight knots there, kissing the top of her head. "Just leave it for tonight. Pod can do it first thing in the morning, or I can. You don't have to do this all on your own."

Her chin dropped to her chest as the smallest amount of tension started to ease out of her under the pressure of his fingers. "You're not going to do anything first thing in the morning," she told him, amused and affectionate, her voice muffled.

He snorted. It was a fair point, but, "I would for you," he said, and he meant it. "You wouldn't even have to be naked." That got a laugh--only a shadow of her usual cackle, but he'd take it. "You have a team for a reason, you know," he went on, more seriously.

"I know, it's just--" She broke off with a hiss of pleasure as he found a particularly tight spot, and he seized the advantage.

"Come on," he said in his most persuasive tone. "Let's get you out of here. I'll pour you a glass of wine, you can soak in a nice hot bath while I make you that pork loin that you like so much…" A little while back, he'd had an unreasonably large bathtub installed in his penthouse while he'd stayed at her apartment for the week, under the pretense of a termite infestation. It had genuinely been meant as a gift to her; she worked so hard that he delighted in pampering her as much as she'd let him. But given that it now semi-regularly brought him the sight of her languorous and shining-eyed and blissful, her skin all strawberries and cream dotted with nutmeg freckles, water glistening all along the glorious long lines of her... he was forced to admit that no matter how much she enjoyed those baths, it seemed impossible that she could enjoy them as much as he did. 

The pork loin he'd promised her cooked on the low and slow side, and he was already calculating whether that would give him time to find out if she wanted company in the bath--make sure she was as thoroughly relaxed as possible--when he realized that she'd tipped her head back and was looking up at him.

"Jaime. I'm not interested in pork loin right now."

"Okay," he said easily; maybe something that took longer, then, even more time to--

While he was considering, she leaned back in her chair until her shoulders were resting just above his hips, then gave a sinuous roll of her spine. 

Right against his cock. 

Which was suddenly _very_ interested in the proceedings. 

"Jaime," she said again, her expression solemn but her eyes wicked, "I'm not interested in _pork_ loin right now."

His jaw fell open. " _Commis_ , did you just make a dirty joke? A _terrible_ dirty joke?"

"I guess you're rubbing off on me." And she did the thing again, with her shoulders, and that was _another_ terrible joke, and--

"I'd ask what's gotten into you, but I can write my own bad pun in response to that one and I don't want you stealing my bit," he said, lowering his voice to the register that he knew made her squirm, letting his hands skate down the inviting slope of her chest until they covered her breasts. Her back arched and she made a greedy little sound; the back of her head brushed against his cock again as the angle shifted. He could feel the pebbled buds of her nipples easily through the fabric of her shirt, and he caught them between his fingers. She pressed her hands down over his for a breath, eyelids fluttering shut, then tossed his hands aside and stood up, shoving the desk chair aside so that it rolled across the room and bounced off the wall. 

"You know what? I've been extremely responsible today," she told him as she moved--stalked, almost--into his space. 

He swallowed hard. "Of course you have."

"I've been patient, too," she went on, arms winding around his neck. "Professional. Unflappable."

"I've always admired it," he managed. Hardly daring to breathe for fear he'd jar her out of whatever mood she was in.

"So I've earned a little time to be none of those things, wouldn't you say?"

And he absolutely would have, except for how he couldn't say anything thanks to how thoroughly she occupied his mouth with hers. 

He'd thought he was ready, but still he stumbled backward a little until he could brace his feet and steady her as she swept over him like a summer storm. Reckless energy was crackling out of her, her tongue slick and eager, all her formidable strength devoted to bringing them as close together as possible. He could feel the day's frustration in the flashes of teeth, the way her fingers twisted in the fabric of his shirt; he could feel how much she loved and wanted him with each ragged breath into his mouth, the way her hips cradled his, the knowledge that she trusted him with the full force of her. 

She slid one leg between his and he groaned from the twin sensations of her hard thigh against his cock and her hot center riding him. Desperate to feel her, there where he knew she was wet and ready for him, he went for the button on her jeans, but she shook her head and pulled her mouth away. "Not in here. I've been stuck in this place all day."

With his blood roaring in his ears and her hips setting off tiny explosions in him with every movement, it took a second for her meaning to get through. When it finally did, he swallowed his disappointment at the delay--he could wait, these days, when he wasn't half-expecting her to come to her senses and ditch him any second--and gave her his most seductive smile, then leaned in to run his tongue along the shell of her ear. "Well then, let's get you home."

She shivered and laughed a little. "Mmm. Tempting, but too far away."

Surprised, he pulled back. "So what did you have in mind?" There was a hotel a few blocks away, they could--

"There's the alley out back," she said, eyes bright with challenge and just shy enough to add an extra thrill of delighted shock at her own boldness. 

And while he'd definitely thought about fucking her outside before--he'd thought about fucking her just about everywhere, if he was honest--he'd always imagined a forest glade or a mountainside or at least a quiet corner of the park during one of their morning runs. But if she wanted him here and now, so badly that she couldn't wait, well, who was he to deny her?

"As you command, my lady," he told her, surging forward for another kiss that left her breathless and beaming at him as he pulled her toward the back door. 

It was almost full dark, the nearest streetlights far enough away to leave them with mostly charcoal shadows and the bite of early autumn in the air. Jaime knew exactly what this alley looked like in daylight, but somehow the darkness set against the fathomless blue of her eyes and the fierce glint to her grin transformed it into an adventurer's cave, a sanctuary made all the more precious for the threat of discovery. She was on him again before he knew it, tongue and hands making him dirty promises, the brick scraping rough against his back, and this time when he went to unfasten her jeans, she let him. 

They were her work jeans, and he was grateful, since they were looser-fitting and therefore allowed him just enough room to slide his hand down, under the line of her underwear, combing through the coarse hair between her legs. As soon as his fingertips touched slippery heat, she bucked hard against him and gave a glad cry that was fortunately muffled by his mouth. She hooked one leg around him to stabilize herself and to give him better access, and he slid two fingers inside her, dizzy with the scent of her sweat, the feel of her tight and molten around him. 

"More," she demanded, scraping her teeth along his jaw, "please, Jaime, _more_ ," and he didn't need to be told twice, thrusting three fingers deep and pressing the heel of his hand against her clit as he did. She moaned into his neck, fingers clenching on his shoulders so hard he'd probably still have the impressions of them on his skin tomorrow. He hoped he would.

Between her pent-up frustration and the rapt attention he'd paid to her every twitch and sigh over the time they'd been together, it wasn't long before she was writhing against him, grinding down shamelessly on his hand as he worked his fingers inside her. He'd been raised on the belief that his worth only extended as far as his usefulness, and that awareness had dogged him his entire life; the fact that Brienne didn't ascribe to anything of the sort, though, turned an anxious duty into a joy, made him that much more determined to be useful to her. He loved knowing that it was his touch she craved, his name she was chanting into the night, his strength that was equal to hers. And when her desperate sounds reached their peak and she poured into his hand, the thrill of pride went right to his core.

Afterward, he held her while she shuddered, wringing every drop of sensation out of her that he could. When he finally withdrew his hand, she stumbled sideways until she was resting against the wall, still breathing hard, then reached out to tug him in for a sloppy kiss. "Thank you," she told him, smiling and blurry with satisfaction. He grinned and kissed her flushed cheek. 

"My pleasure." And for once he _didn't_ make the joke, because he liked to switch things up every now and then; Brienne, however, seemed to take the unspoken meaning anyway, drawing his sticky hand up to her mouth and slowly, thoroughly licking his fingers clean, her gaze sharpening with every slide of her tongue. He'd been hard since the second she'd leaned back against him, back in her office, but now he could practically feel every drop of blood in his body rushing to his dick in the hope of her attention.

"How am I supposed to stop making bad sex jokes if you keep setting me up for them?" she teased when she was done, and he laughed with as much breath as he could muster. When she started to slide down his body, though, he grabbed her shoulders.

"Brienne, we're in the _alley_ , it's--"

She narrowed her eyes at him in mock annoyance. "Are you trying to ask me to be responsible?"

"I--just--" he stuttered, momentarily outmaneuvered, too many of his brain cells already having gleefully jumped ship. Then, _aha_ , he countered with, "But don't you want my cock inside you? I know how much you like it," and watched her eyelids flutter. 

Still, "It _is_ going inside me," she pointed out, on her knees now as she got his zipper open and closed her big hand around his length. "Just not there. Not yet."

"Brienne--" But he was leaking onto her fingers, and she looked up at him, smug.

"Just a taste," she promised, and closed her mouth around him.

The wet heat of her was electric, a shock of sheer bliss up his spine. Despite her limited experience, Brienne had approached the study of blowjobs with the same dedication and thoroughness she applied to all the important things in her life, and given that _Brienne. giving him a blowjob._ was enough to get him halfway there already, her actually learning the specifics of what he liked was almost unfair. He curved his hand around her jaw so that he could feel her working him slow and hard and devastating, feel her hum happily against him when a practiced twist of her hand pulled a groan out of what felt like his _soul_. 

He let it go on as long as he could-- _gods_ , she was getting too good at this--until he could feel himself thickening even more in her mouth, see the edge on the horizon. "Brienne," he gritted out, falling forward to brace himself against the wall, "Brienne, stop, I want to--I'm not going to--"

He was a little worried that she wouldn't respond right away and it would be all over, but almost immediately, she nodded and gave him one last, long lick, then released him, kissing the tip of his dick as she did. The cool air hit his damp, tender skin and he flinched, but it was probably for the best, since he wanted to last longer than the two or three thrusts inside her he'd likely have managed otherwise. Her hair was tousled from his hands, and her smile was eager and joyful when she stood up to kiss him, his flavor still on her tongue.

When she stepped backward, toward the wall, he hesitated, unsure of exactly how to approach this; if he took her from behind, she might not need her jeans all the way off, but having her face to the wall seemed less than ideal for either of them. While he was considering their options, she shoved her own jeans down her legs and then stopped when she got to her clogs, looking up at him, then at the dirty pavement, then back at him.

"Okay, we're definitely doing this, but how do we do this without getting tetanus?" she asked, giggling, and he snickered. Gods, he _loved_ her.

"Here," he said, suddenly inspired, "you can stand on my feet." She raised an eyebrow at him; he rolled his eyes. "I thought you trusted me," he challenged.

"I trust _you_ ," she grumbled, toeing off one of her clogs, putting a hand on his shoulder for balance as she teetered on one leg long enough to pull her jeans and sock off of the other one. "It's the structural integrity of your bones I'm concerned about."

"Let me worry about my own boning," he said, and then, when she gave him a Look, "What? You've been stealing my bit all day, I get to get one in."

"Yes, for some reason, you do," she said, that little _ha-HA_ light in her eyes that just destroyed him every time, and she put her bare foot on top of his boot and leaned forward gradually. "Are you good?" she asked as she put more weight on him.

He banded an arm around her and set his teeth to her neck, filling his nose with her scent. "Am I good with having my unbelievably sexy girlfriend plastered against me? Well, it's a trial, but I'm willing to sacrifice for the good of the relationship."

She huffed a pleased little laugh, and he felt her neck grow hotter underneath his lips. When she'd managed to wiggle out of her jeans, stuff her socks and underwear in the pockets, and toss the whole bundle over a nearby railing, she stood there, feet on his feet, grinning down at him and so bright in the moonlight he couldn't help but kiss her.

She was wearing one his shirts again, which never failed to give him a primal, possessive thrill; the tails of it were barely long enough to cover the tops of her thighs and definitely not enough to keep them from getting arrested for indecent exposure if they were caught, but he'd take whatever punishment came his way as long as he got to feel her come around his cock first. The pause for logistics had taken the edge off his erection, but all he needed to do was feel her damp warmth against him through the thin material of the shirt and he was headed right back toward diamond-hard. He slid a finger between her folds to make sure she was ready, too, and sure enough, she was still slippery and wanting, and she sucked in a sharp breath as soon as he touched her. 

He couldn't resist lingering there for a minute, feeling her chest hitch and her muscles clench, hearing the throaty noises she made as he circled her clit, until finally she groaned, "I thought I heard a lot of big talk about getting one in," and he laughed and pressed her back until she was leaning against the wall. He reached down behind one of her knees and pulled it up, over his hip, taking his dick in his hand to line himself up; when he finally worked his way into her, finally sank into all that tight, welcoming heat, right to the hilt, he could have sworn he actually levitated for a second.

But she kept him grounded, as always, warm and solid and sweet and fucking _unbelievable_ against him and around him as he began to move. Then she started speaking, phrases broken by inarticulate noises as he thrust again and again, all of it wrapping him up like an embrace: "All I could think about," she was telling him, "all day, this terrible day, was you, and how much I wanted to see you, touch you, laugh with you at this--stupid--fucked--up--day--" and as always, something in his chest seemed to melt, flowing toward her like honey. By nature, she wasn't much of a talker during sex, but she knew what it did to him, so she was trying it more and more often, for him, because he liked it, and he loved her so much that he couldn't see the end of it.

He grabbed her other knee, pulled it up so she could lock her powerful legs around his back while her hands braced on his shoulders. The change in angle let him drive deeper, though he held back a little, mindful of the brick at her back.

"Harder," she insisted. She shoved her hips toward him, legs gripping him tighter.

"Brienne--"

"Jaime," she gasped, eyes fierce and intent, "I need this. Come on, I won't break, you feel so good, I love your cock in me, it's so hard, so deep, you're so good, just fuck me, come on, _harder_ ," and she had _never_ talked to him quite like that and it pushed him past reason, had him pounding into her as she keened and panted encouragement into his ear. He couldn't spare a hand--especially not with only one and a half to work with--but he ground his hips every time he bottomed out, pressing against her clit, making her whole body shake. She rarely came without his fingers or hers in the mix, but the sounds she was making were urgent and needy, echoing off the brick, reverberating in his brain, his heart, his groin; it spurred him on as he pistoned his hips harder, faster, willing her orgasm into being with all the force he had in him.

Finally, _finally_ the wave broke, and he could feel all her beautiful muscles contract hard around him as she shouted her pleasure up to the stars. And even before she'd fully come down from it, she was talking again, "I love you, Jaime," her voice fucked-out and hoarse, hands clutching his hair and her mouth hot against the skin of his neck. "I love you, Jaime, I love you, I love you," and that was all he needed, it was all he'd ever needed, and before he knew it he was coming, too, so hard that everything went bright and brilliant and silent except for the steadying anchor of her voice.

When he could move again, he let go of her legs, let them slide slowly down his body, feet coming to rest on top of his again while he kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, lazy open-mouthed kisses as both of them quaked a bit with the aftershocks. He knew they should go back inside, but he couldn't bring himself to leave this giddy, exhausted cocoon, where half of his breath was hers and half of hers was his and she was boneless and smiling against him. Eventually a cold breeze snaked its way into the alley, and he shivered when it hit his sweat-damp skin.

"Delicate Southern boy," she teased him, grinning, only light now in her eyes.

"Crazy Stormlands girl," he retorted, because he didn't think that protesting that he was actually a delicate Westerlands boy at heart would advance his argument much. He kissed her grin one more time, then heaved a sigh and gave the slope of her bare ass one last lingering caress. "We've probably pushed our luck far enough, though."

She groaned and dropped her head to his shoulder. "But you smell so good. And burned beer smells so disgusting."

He chuckled. "Yeah, wow, it really does," he agreed. He tucked a kiss behind her ear, then slid his hand up along the back of her head, fingers rubbing soothingly at her scalp. "Tell you what. Get your clothes on and wait for me outside the front door. I'll lock up and get your stuff and meet you out there."

"No, I don't want you to have to deal with it just because I don't want to," she sighed, and he tugged her hair.

"Hey. You gave me a key for a reason, right? Let your team help you, Chef." And apparently all it took was disastrous day combined with--if he said so himself--a mindblowing orgasm to keep Brienne from arguing with him for five seconds, because she sighed again and nodded and stepped off his feet, back into her clogs. 

His toes tingled as sensation started rushing back into them. He couldn't help staring at the milky lines of her endless legs, luminous in the dark; she caught him at it and wrinkled her nose. "Like my sexy ensemble?" she asked dryly, tipping one of her feet up on its heel so he could get a full view of the clunky clogs.

"Brienne," he said, as his heart suddenly flipped over in his chest, "I like everything about you," and left her blushing while he went back inside to gather their things.

Later, she fell asleep in the promised bath, and he had to drag her out, wrap her in a towel and haul her to bed in his arms, over her sleepy protests. Truth be told, he almost put his back out doing it--he wasn't as young as he'd once been--but it was worth it to feel her curled contentedly against him, see her blissful smile as he settled her into the bed. When he was lying next to her, she reached out and put a hand on his cheek. "If you ever tell him this, I'll deny it, but I'm so glad Renly got sick that night," she told him, and he laughed softly.

"Believe me, so am I. _Commis_ ," he added, because the occasion seemed to call for it.

She rolled her eyes, as expected, and then she leaned in close to kiss him and he found out that she wasn't quite ready for sleep yet, after all.

As a result, he woke before she did for once, having closed the blackout curtains and set the vibration alarm on his watch so as not to disturb her. He rolled carefully out of bed and left her breathing deep, phone already in his hand.

When Brienne arrived at the kitchen a few hours later, Jaime and Pod and Margaery were seated around the table in the sparkling clean space, laughing while Pod regaled them with a tale of chocolate truffles gone hideously wrong.

"What in the hells is this?" Brienne asked, looking rested and energized and slightly sleep-creased and also, at the moment, more than a little stunned. Jaime held in a snicker; she looked like she'd come prepared for a battle and found a field full of frolicking lambs instead.

"About time you got here," Margaery sniffed. "Honestly, I don't see how an adult human can possibly sleep so late." Which prompted a high-five from Jaime, seeing as both of them had been on the receiving end of that observation from Brienne's lips more than once.

"I have no idea how that happened," Brienne admitted, flushing.

"I do," Jaime volunteered cheerfully, and she went even redder and shot him a quelling look.

_"Jaime."_

"I'm just saying, it doesn't need to remain a mystery."

"Like there's anything mysterious about what you two do to wear each other out," Margaery scoffed. " _Anyway_ , Brienne, you'll be happy to know that Pod sweet-talked the woman at the tile delivery place into expediting our order, so she guaranteed that it will be here tomorrow, and I rescheduled the cooler delivery for the day after that, which will give us plenty of time to prep for Grandmother's party. Last night's class is rescheduled for next Thursday, and Jaime's going to help you teach it, if you want."

"And," Jaime added, getting to his feet while Brienne's jaw hung open, "for the grand finale--though not as quite as grand as your _Game of Chefs_ finale, of course, but the best we mere mortals could achieve--behold!" And he waved a dramatic hand in front of the oven before twisting the knob to turn it on. 

It beeped obligingly, and a tiny light came on to indicate that it was pre-heating. 

Jaime frowned at it. "Huh. That was more anticlimactic than I expected."

Brienne was just staring. _"What,"_ she repeated, "in the _fucking hells_."

"Your friend Gendry is a wizard with ovens, I guess," Jaime explained airily, not bothering to add that Tyrion had actually been the one to track down Gendry's number, because Tyrion could get anyone's number, "and he had some time available this morning, so." He patted the still-battered range. "Congratulations, you've saved another one."

"And we have mimosas," Margaery added, going to get the champagne and orange juice from the small refrigerator underneath the counter.

"And scones." Pod produced a plate of them.

"They're cranberry and tangerine and they're _amazing_ ," Margaery said. "I know because I seduced him into letting me have two of them before we left this morning."

 _"Margaery,"_ Podrick hissed, shooting a mortified look at Brienne.

"What?" Margaery replied. "There were obviously meant to be twelve, and I just didn't want there to be any _mystery_ ," and she aimed a syrupy-sweet smile in Jaime's direction.

Brienne still looked shell-shocked, but there was incredulous light creeping over her face, tears welling in her eyes. "All of you… this is… I don't know what to say."

Jaime stood up and crossed the few steps to her, pressing a long kiss to her cheek. "Told you," he said smugly into her ear, and she gave a watery laugh.

"You're so obnoxious when you're right."

"Thank goodness it doesn't happen very often." That was Margaery, who took Brienne's hand and pulled her toward the table. "Sit down, Brie, have some breakfast."

Scones were distributed, coffee refreshed, mimosas mixed. Jaime scooted his chair close to Brienne's so that he could steal a strawberry from her helping of the fruit salad he'd thrown together. 

"Hey!" she objected. "Hands on your own plate, Lannister."

"That's not what you said last night," he told her, grinning wickedly and arching an eyebrow, and she groaned. "Hey, that's also what you said last night!"

He was in the middle of fending off her slap on his shoulder, as well as Margaery's grumbling, when his phone buzzed on the table near him. Against his better judgment--most of the people he actually wanted to talk to were in this room--he picked it up, and sure enough, the message was enough to poke a good-sized hole in his bouyant mood.

"What?" Brienne asked, putting a hand on his forearm. 

"Nothing," Jaime said dismissively. "Just that I've been voluntold to make an appearance at the LanCo fundraiser next week." With Tyrion's help, he was quietly investigating how to extricate himself from his father's company completely, but it was a delicate process, with projects he actually cared about in the balance, so he was still in the early stages. In the meantime, his father seemed to relish being able to bring Jaime to heel when he wanted.

"Hey." Brienne squeezed his forearm, her eyes gentle. "I'll go with you, if you want." She looked over at Pod and Margaery. "Actually, you know what? We'll all go with you. Right?"

Margaery blinked in surprise, but shifted gears with as much agility as ever. "Sansa's been promising me a shopping trip with her for weeks, so. This seems like as good an excuse as any." She winked at Jaime, mouth half-curved in a genuine smile.

"Exactly. Pod?" Brienne pressed, as if the boy wouldn't bring her a rock from the bottom of the ocean if she asked it.

He nodded, though--to Jaime's surprise--his eyes were on Jaime when he did it. "Seems like the least we can do, if it would be helpful," he said, with his customary combination of shyness and solidity.

"Perfect." Brienne clapped a hand down on the table. "You can get us on the list, right, Jaime? The three breakout stars from _Game of Chefs_? That's got to be good for some distraction."

"Yes, I'm… but I…" None of this made sense. Dragging Brienne with him to these things was one thing, and he hated that enough, but given that Margaery and Pod only hung around with him because he was attached to Brienne, surely spending an evening in the world's dullest hornet's nest was above and beyond the call of duty.

He looked around the table--at Brienne's banked glow, Pod's sincere face, the affectionate twist to Margaery's smile--and felt hesitant warmth start to unfurl in his chest, slowly driving out the chill his father's message had brought over him. Then he looked back at Brienne; Brienne, who was supposed to be the one surprised this morning, who'd outflanked him _again_. She grinned at him.

"You have a team for a reason, Jaime," she mimicked, sweetly mocking, and he could only smile helplessly back at her as she slid him another scone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this story is really, FOR REAL, done. Thank you so much to everyone for reading, and for all the amazing support! ❤️


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